A Brief History of my Favourite Authors Part 1

As an author, one thing that I get asked a lot it "who inspired you?" and I haven't been able to give a decent answer.

The assumption, of course, is that there's an author whose books left such an impression on me that I (at least on some level) was inspired to copy them.  Well not copy them, but do what they do.

And that's not how it went at all.  I have loved reading from a very young age.  Books, puzzles and model aeroplanes were my life as a kid.  I don't know when it dawned on me that writing books was an actual option.  But by then I'd read such amazing books that I was over-awed.  I knew that there was no way I could write anything nearly as good as my heroes, so why bother?

The first authors whose worlds I fell in love with were Asimov and Clarke.  I pretty much only read science fiction at that point.  After  staying up after my bedtime, reading them by torchlight under my covers in our Wandiligong home, Asimov's short stories and novels kept me up at night, on my bunk sometimes in fear, sometimes in wonder, but mostly giddy with the absolute genius behind it.  Despite a lot of his works being 'hard' sci-fi, it was written in such an accessible manner that even an eleven-year-old understood it.  The worlds he dreamt up, the future histories of humanity, the perfect mysteries, the bizarre and humorous, and the deep characters.  Any writer would consider themselves lucky to come up with one idea as good as any of his, and he had hundreds.  He is probably most famous for the Foundation series, but if I had to choose just one Asimov piece to take with me to a desert island, it would be Nightfall.  I usually try promote Australian authors here, but if you haven't read Nightfall, do yourself a favour.

Like Asimov, Clarke is an author who wrote hard sci-fi, and is probably most famous for writing 2001: A Space Odyssey and Childhood's end.  The book by Arthur C. Clarke that to this day astounds me is Rendezvous with Rama.  I used to read it with my mum and  liked it so much that as soon as I finished reading it I went right back to the start.  It was so well written, the mystery, the fear, the adventure.  Having a great first line is amazing.  But ending a book with a final sentence that gives you that 'oh my God' moment, there's nothing better.  I'm not going to spoil the ending for anyone who hasn't read it, because if you haven't, you're going to get yourself a copy now. 

  

Amongst others, Asimov and Clarke wrote pieces that challenged so many of my preconceptions of the world, the origin and nature of humanity, and the origin and nature of the universe.  And between them, what questions about the Earth, about the solar system, about the universe, did they not ask?  If I wanted to be a science-fiction writer, what could I do that they had not already done?  Not only were they sci-fi writers, but they were also scientists.  I knew I wasn't smart enough to be a scientist, and if you had to be a scientist to write science fiction, there wasn't much hope for me.  That's a idea that kinda stuck with me, that you have to be a scientist to write science fiction.  From a twelve-year-old's perspective, you think that makes sense. And you have to admit, there's a certain logic to it.  It's funny how having these little ideas in your head, unchallenged, almost too small to notice, can make a difference to someone's life.   

From Sci-Fi I turned to Fantasy, and the cycle continues.  Stay tuned for Part 2 when I talk about the fantasy books that changed my life.