Ten Books That have Stayed With Me

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.

The Revenge of Irene Adler

I love Sherlock Holmes now, but it wasn't love at first read.

I don't remember the first story I read when I was eight or nine, but I definitely remember being angry after I finished it. How on earth was I supposed to solve that mystery along with the detective? Did the writer expect me to know what a smear of brick dust meant? Well, no, Arthur Conon Doyle didn't expect anyone to solve the mystery. Anyone except Sherlock Holmes. And that was the point of his stories. You were supposed to sit back and marvel at how brilliant Sherlock was.

Well, Pffffffft to that.

However, I'd read almost every other mystery novel in the library and I was desperate for a fix, so I gritted my teeth and decided to give ACD another try. It was either fate or luck that the next Sherlock Holmes story I read was A Scandal in Bohemia. There wasn't much to solve, except where the picture was hidden, but it hooked me because of the character Irene Adler.

Irene was the first female character I met with a career. Better than that, she didn't behave properly, didn't play fair, and she got away with it. Oh, she was a lovely revelation. She was the smartest person in the room, and the smartest man - Sherlock - not only acknowledged she'd outwitted him, he admired her for it. Even Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime, couldn't manage that! That's what made her The Woman. How sad that she only existed in one short story, but I carried her as a silver of hope in my heart. 

While I'm a fan of  BBC's show Sherlock, the Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey jr, and I'm even okay with Elementary, I have a huge issue with how they handle Irene Adler. Both BBC Sherlock and the movies for some odd reason decided to intertwine her character with Moriarty. Worse, they made her his subordinate. Irene isn't The Woman if she doesn't outwit Sherlock, but in both the BBC series and the movies, Sherlock and Moriarty outwit her. Wait! What? Oh no. (We'll see how Elementary handles her. I suspect that in their version, Irene is Moriarty. Not sure how I feel about that. We'll see if I'm right.) Here's a strong female character created by a Victorian gentleman, but modern (male) writers demote her to henchman? What the hell, guys? 

 I had already written Devil's Concubine and the first draft of Devil Incarnate before I saw the second SH movie or any episodes of the BBC series, so DC and DI aren't a rebuttal to them. I didn't even plan to write a character that could, in some light, be seen as Irene Adler fanfic. I simply wanted to write a story about an interesting woman. I'd already 'met' QuiTai, but as I filled in her background, the similarities between her and Irene were clear to me. So I asked, "What if Irene Adler were born on a different planet?" She'd have adventures that tested her brilliant mind. She'd be cunning and resourceful and never once apologize for being herself. She certainly wouldn't have to lose just to make Sherlock look good. Really, writer dudes, what is your issue with Irene?

QuiTai’s final words in The Devil Incarnate are, “I win.”

Yes, you do, because you are The Woman. 

Always.

Love, Me.