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.

   

The 20 Best Books I Read in 2017 (Part One).

In my first blog Evidently I'm Going to Regret This I said that I'd read 52 books in 2017 as part of the Popsugar Reading Challenge.  I honestly surprised myself by reaching that goal. 

Anyway now's as good a time as any to share my favourite books from last year.  I say 'from last year' but honestly I read more books that are 10 to 50 years old than books read the year they're published.  Anyway, here are ten of the books I gave 4 stars to (in the order that I read them).

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN  - Lindqvist (2004). 
From the start, I am not a fan of Vampires.  But I'd seen the movies (and probably don't need to say that the original is better than the remake) and really enjoyed them, so I thought I'd give it a go.  and it was great.  Really dark and creepy, almost Lolita levels of creepy, basically.  What was great about it was how it was not the usual vampire story.  The protagonist was a boy in Sweden who was bullied at school and befriends a young girl in their apartment complex.  Who turns out to be a vampire.  There is a lot of killings and brutality, and at the centre of it all are these sweet kids who help each other out of nothing but friendship.  It's tense, it gritty, it's written really well. 

THE COLLECTOR - Fowles (1963).
This was a really clever book set in England about a socially awkward clerk who comes into a large sum of money and his plans to win the affections of Miranda, a middle-class Art student he has long admired.  He eventually convinces himself to kidnap her, and win her affection by being nothing but a gentleman to her.  But he didn't think his plan through, nor count on the intelligence and desperation of his prey.  The second part of the novel is told from Miranda's POV and is entirely compelling.  It it well written, it gives one the chills, and leaves you breathless.  Highly recommended.

MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN - Riggs (2011).
Miss Peregrine's is a really fun YA novel, where Jacob finds there might be some truth to his grandfather's crazy stories shortly after his disturbing death.  When he has an opportunity to go to a place that was special to his grandfather with his dad, he jumps at the chance, and starts putting together pieces to a mystery lost in time.
It's a different take on the standard YA fantasy, it's engaging, and feels quite familiar all the way through.  Meeting the 'Peculiar' children (and Miss Peregrine, of course) is a delight, however the further you go, the darker and scarier it gets.

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK - Lindsay (1967).
The very first few pages absolutely transported me to my youth, growing up in country Victoria, the sights, the sounds, the scents are exactly as Lindsay described.  This novel actually featured in a recent blog post of mine, Books and Movies that I Love.  Basically Picnic at Hanging Rock is a superb mystery full of eerie events, curious characters and sinister undertones. 

LAVINIA - Le Guin (2008).
Ursula K. Le Guin, one of my all-time favourite authors, wrote Lavinia in 2008.  It is an unusual book in a sense, as the titular character is a character in Virgil's Aeneid.  A significant character, too - the wife of the hero Aeneas, yet in the Aeneid she was not given a line.  Le Guin gave her a voice, and made her real - but not only that, but brought her family and community of Laurentum to life, and describe's not only Lavinia's conflict with her family marvellously, but also the war between Laurentum and her neighbours and the invading Trojans, lead by Aeneas. 

RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA - Clarke (1973). 
This was a childhood favourite of mine, I am not ashamed to admit.  The imagination that Clarke had, the skills to bring such wonders to life, absolutely phenomenal.  Anyway, Rendezvous With Rama  tells the classic sci-fi story of first contact with alien intelligence.  An unidentified object - a massive cylinder - enteres out Solar System and slows down, and a crew of astronauts is dispatched to investigate it.  The tale of the crew and their exploration of the cylinder is so clever, and the ending is just so perfect, that I can't say a bad word about it.

PERFUME:  THE STORY OF A MURDERER - Suskind (1985).
Another novel that I had read after seeing the movie.  This is an original story though, in that it tells the tale of a man whose sense of smell is so powerful that his perspective of the world is unique.  He becomes a perfumer, one who creates perfumes, and becomes obsessed with capturing all the scents and creating perfumes to make people see him as angelic or god-like.  Unfortunately, some of the scents he must capture and use he can only obtain my murder.  The whole thing is very clever and really well-written.

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY - Adams (1979).
I have to say that I used this book for the 'about an immigrant or refugee' prompt.  I don't think there's much for me to say about this one.  There's no dispute it's hilarious and an absolute sci-fi comedy classic. 

THE KING'S JUSTICE - Donaldson (2016).
This was a very interesting fantasy story.  A man rides into a town in the Kingdom attempting to solve a disturbing murder, which soon turn into a series of murders.  The characters are great, the story is captivating and complex with many twists and turns, and Donaldson has created another amazing fantasy world with a brilliant system of magic.

MARTIAN TIME-SLIP - Dick (1964).
I have to say Philip K. Dick is one of my favourite authors.  I have read most of his 44 novels and 120 short stories, and this is one of the ones that I think is the most under-rated.  What Dick does so well is really get right into the day-to-day life and concerns of the average person in whatever insane world he comes up with.  In Martian Time-Slip, the protagonist Bohlen is a repairman on a struggling colony on Mars.  His relationship with his wife is on a downward spiral, his employer is taking advantage of him, but what can he do?  Just get through as best he can and try keep his schizophrenic episodes at bay.  When Bohlen's path crosses with Arnie Kott's, the leader of the Water Worker's Union, his life gets turned upside down.  The most outstanding yet terrifying part of this book is Dick's description of what Manfred Steiner, an autistic child who becomes one of Arnie Kott's many pawns perceives. 


So that's the first ten books of my top twenty.
Next week I'll summarise the top ten, and share which six books I gave 5 star reviews to.

Please comment on whether you agree or disagree with my reviews, or the best books that you read last year!