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.
