This week the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are was released. It seems like everyone has read and loved this book. As a child I was enthralled by Maurice Sendak’s illustrations, and I still look on them today with a kind of reverent awe. It’s an amazing style, and it fits the feel of the book so perfectly. Someday I hope to be able to present that kind of atmosphere that fits so well with the story for Marooned. Anyway, lovely trailer – so glad it’s mainly live action.
The other day I was thinking about books that have shaped my creative ideas. I got into reading as a very young child and have been a voracious reader ever since. I have memories of reading Peanuts (Snoopy and his Sopwith Camel) to my mom on the couch at a very young age.
Libraries are one of my favorite places. When I was a kid, I would explore the library for hours on end, looking at all kinds of subjects, although quite often focusing on fantasy and science fiction. I discovered Tolkien, of course, fairly early. Like most Tolkien fans, I’m a re-reader of the series and I lost count somewhere between 35-40 readings.
When I was a young teen, my Grandfather gave me a box of books that he had read (he was a fantasy/sci-fi fan too) which I read and re-read for many years. Here’s are six series of books that had a big impact:
- The Lord of the Rings
(including The Hobbit) by J.R.R. Tolkien - The Chronicles of Narnia
by C.S. Lewis - The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever
by Stephen R. Donaldson - Heavy Time, Hellburner and the Company Wars
books by C.J. Cherryh - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
/Dirk Gently series by Douglas Adams
- The Dark Tower
series by Stephen King
I’m not sure which I discovered first, Tolkien or Lewis – but they were at about the same time, 5th or 6th grade. Once I had read all 11 of those books, I scoured the shelves for similar fare. I have no idea how much Fantasy I’ve read, but it was a lot at one point.
The Thomas Covenant series is utterly amazing. There are very few stories you can lose yourself in like Covenant. The depth of character and atmosphere is so pervasive in these books, it is unparalleled. The conflicts and pain Covenant goes through, you go through it with him. You feel his love for the Land and it’s inhabitants, and his struggle with his disease. The new series has been just as amazing – which is amazing in and of itself.
The Company Wars books by C.J. Cherryh give you the same type of suspension of belief – except in a sci-fi atmosphere. You think you are on a ship in space. She makes it feel real in a very non-Star Wars like way. It’s small, cramped and dirty with bad food and worse smells. The opening of Heavy Time is one of the most compelling stories you will read. She also involves you emotionally with her characters, just like Donaldson and Tolkien do. To me those books are what sci-fi should be in a lot of ways. I wish she would revisit those themes.
What can you say about the Hitchhiker stuff? If you like that type of humor, it’s the best. Geek humor at it’s highest, there’s nothing better.
I had to throw in the Dark Tower series. Even though I think it ultimately failed to deliver – which really sucked – it’s still an amazing tour de force series. The first few books, where the Gunslinger awakes, figures out his predicament and draws the three, there are few books that can suck you in like that. Again it’s not only the action, but King involves you with the characters. You get tied to their plight and feel what they feel. If it seems like I keep mentioning that, it’s because I do. To me it’s what makes great stories.
If you ever read the story about how he started these stories – on special green paper that he’d been given, it’s pretty neat.
It seemed like the last couple books though, King lost his way. I really hated the tie-in with the Harry Potter books. Even though so much of the story involved jumping between realities, this was stepping out too far. It broke your ties with the imaginative world in which you were adventuring. And it felt cheap.
The whole thing with him actually bringing himself into the story was perhaps innovative but ultimately a failure. Again, you became pulled out of the story. I’ve read some of his thoughts on why he did it and such. Certainly it was his book and his decision, his story. You have to do what you think is right. But your fans don’t have to like it, either.
(Bit of a spoiler below, if you haven’t read it…)
The last book was eagerly anticipated. He finally gets to the Dark Tower, but the result was just not satisfactory. It’s the best way I can explain it. And when he steps through the door and essentially starts over. After all he went through to get there and resolve things. This was the quest of all quests – and he flips back to the start? This is as bad as “it was all a dream.”
Even so, still one of the great adventure series ever.
I’ll have to list more on a different day. I love books.
The movie looks like it was done well.You know what you might like? Jim Butcher’s books.
He has a sci-fi / fantasy series called The Dresden Files. The Dresden Files are Jim’s first published series, telling the story of Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, Chicago’s first (and only) Wizard P.I.
He also has a fantasy series called Codex Alera. Your basic fantasy setting where the people can manipulate elements through a connection with these things called furies. The main(ish) character is a boy without furies whose home is threatened by a savage race. Check ‘em out at jim-butcher.com
Thanks… Splox (I gotta get used to calling you that now) – you are the second person today to mention Jim Butcher to me. I’ll have to look it up. I hear Dresden is better than the Alera stuff.
here at the eastern bloc i’ve had whole different scifi books. stanislaw lem (iljon tichy), asimov (i loved the robot stories as a kid), zsoldos péter (the scorpion trilogy was fantastic). we had robur, a magazine that published short antologies of various sources, and of course galaktika magazin, which is (was) the longest going printed sci-fi magazine of hungary.
i’m not too kin on fantasy, imho.
I’m aware of Lem, he is thought of highly here as a golden age sci-fi writer. I read one of his books, although looking at his bibliography, I don’t recall which one. Sounds like you guys had good stuff. Is that Scorpion Trilogy available in English?
Have you read Steven Brust? His mixture of action and humor is just the kind of reading that appeals to me. Both on fantasy (the Jhereg series) and sci-fi (Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grill).
I read them as a teenager and, looking him up just now to make sure I got the spelling right, not only do I find out there are other books I haven’t read but that he is of Hungarian origin, which I didn’t know …
Thank you very very much for friday fandom! I discovered more than one fantastic reference here!
Boy, I Love the title Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grill! I have to look that up. Glad you like Friday Fandom, I have fun doing it.
@tom: Is that Scorpion Trilogy available in English?
i think not. btw, it’s written by nemere istván, who is our pulp sci-fi writer. and mea culpa, it’s not the scorpion, but the dorg trilogy
http://www.nemere.hu/english.htm
did you know that the base novel (holtak harca, or the fight of the dead) for the demolition man (snipes vs stallone) movie was used without authorization by hollywood?
I agree with almost your entire list…. BUT would exchange the Discworld series for the Dark Tower series. Yes, the Dark Tower has some compelling characters but no matter how you look at it Discworld can and does repeatedly pull you into the lead characters plight. Amazingly secondary characters can and will pull you in even harder.
I’ve never read any Terry Pratchett, it just never seemed to appeal to me. I just looked at the explanation of Discworld and my gut reaction is “meh.”
Not a big fan of satire, or works too closely derived from other people’s work. It would have to really be something for me to enjoy it, it would have to be really funny.
And as bad as the Dark Tower series ends up, the first 3 books are some of the most compelling stories I’ve ever read.
13 seems to have been my “magic age”. That’s when I really got into comic books, and when I read Lord of the Rings, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, my first Conan Books (the Lancer series republished by Ace), and various and sundry others.
But I’ve also been a big mystery fan, especially the Perry Mason novels (and the TV show), the Judge Dee books by Robert van Gulik, and others.
Shouldn’t be surprising, considering that I read the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift, Jr. books when I was even younger.
I like mystery too, though I don’t read much of it. I’ve read And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie and loved it, a long time ago. I also read Hardy Boys when I was young and enjoyed them.