This is the current meme going around the social networks. You're supposed to list the first ten that come to mind, but pfffft, I revised after some thought.
In no particular order:
1. Dune by Frank Herbert. The first real science fiction novel I ever read. Made me a fan of the genre. Still among my top ten favorites.
2. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. It probably helps that the year I read it, Apocalypse Now was released.
3. No Fight, No Biting by Else Homelund Minarik with illustrations by Maurice Sendak. I still like this book.
4. Green Eggs and Ham. I didn't like it, but it's the book I was looking at when the whole reading thing clicked into place. I didn't want to go to sleep that night because I was scared I'd forget how to read during the night and the thought of that devastated me.
5. The Harry Potter series. This is my first cheat. But if I list the series book by book, I use seven slots on this limited list, and that simply isn't going to happen.
6. Gun, With Occasional Music (tied with As She Crawled Across the Table) by Johnathan Latham
7. Glass Books of the Dream Eaters/The Dark Volume/Chemikal Marriage by Gordon Dahlquist because they are one book in three parts in my mind. And because I'm cheating again and listing a series as a single book.
8. The Sherlock Holmes mysteries by Aurthur Conan Doyle. truthfully, I listed Agatha Christie here first, but I have a difficult time remembering individual stories beyond And Then There Were None and Murder of the Oriental Express, whereas I can remember almost every Holmes story as distinct.
9. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. But you could put any of his books here because I love them equally.
10. We Have Always Lived in the Castle because it is brilliant and horrible as only Shirley Jackson can write.
and because ten is a silly limit:
11. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin because it really is that good.
12. From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler by E.L. Koninsberg because I really identified with a girl who wanted to escape the horrible fate of being a girl.
13.Kiln People by David Brin because science fiction and a mystery! Great concept. Have to admit the ending draggggggggged.
14. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
15. The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
And my top two for 2013
1. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
2. Alif the Unseen by G Willow Wilson
The reason I'm not including them in the rest of my list is that it's too soon to say if they'll stay with me.
Showing posts with label Glass Books of the Dream Eaters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glass Books of the Dream Eaters. Show all posts
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Monday, April 29, 2013
The Entire Universe
When any writer creates an alternate world in science fiction or fantasy, they know so much more about that world than can ever make it into a book. I suppose they could add it, but snippets about customs, economics, politics, food, clothes, geography, religion, etc would take away from the story.
That's one of the fun things about a blog. It can have all those deeper details that don't make it into the book, or authors notes about the books in general.
I love steampunk and initially envisioned Devil's Concubine as a steampunk novel. Most steampunk stories focus on competitive technologies (The Leviathan series by Scott Westerfield) or the inventors, or even just on the very cool machines and the exciting people who use them (the Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger, Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist, and Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Johnathan Howard, to name some of my favorites). But in most of those worlds, which tend to focus on Victorian England or close substitutes for Europe, the societies have somewhat equal access to technology. What about the people who don't? That was a core question when writing Devil's Concubine.
In the United States, the wild west happened contemporaneously with early automobiles on the streets of Manhattan. Even now, citizens around the globe use smart phones, which are basically hand held computers, while there are still tribes using stone age technology. So while there is technology of a sorts on Ponong, the advanced gadgets will usually be something that they hear about but only a fraction of that technology will make it to the island. That's a more realistic portrayal of the way technology is distributed than showing it as universal. Besides, that way I get to show the frustrations of a population cut off from the cool toys, and how disruptive technology can be. But I'm still dreaming up cool toys, because who doesn't love a shiny new gadget? And air ships. Love those airships. Oooh, and goggles.
That's one of the fun things about a blog. It can have all those deeper details that don't make it into the book, or authors notes about the books in general.
I love steampunk and initially envisioned Devil's Concubine as a steampunk novel. Most steampunk stories focus on competitive technologies (The Leviathan series by Scott Westerfield) or the inventors, or even just on the very cool machines and the exciting people who use them (the Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger, Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist, and Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Johnathan Howard, to name some of my favorites). But in most of those worlds, which tend to focus on Victorian England or close substitutes for Europe, the societies have somewhat equal access to technology. What about the people who don't? That was a core question when writing Devil's Concubine.
In the United States, the wild west happened contemporaneously with early automobiles on the streets of Manhattan. Even now, citizens around the globe use smart phones, which are basically hand held computers, while there are still tribes using stone age technology. So while there is technology of a sorts on Ponong, the advanced gadgets will usually be something that they hear about but only a fraction of that technology will make it to the island. That's a more realistic portrayal of the way technology is distributed than showing it as universal. Besides, that way I get to show the frustrations of a population cut off from the cool toys, and how disruptive technology can be. But I'm still dreaming up cool toys, because who doesn't love a shiny new gadget? And air ships. Love those airships. Oooh, and goggles.
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