|
|
|
|
|
Books are fabulous things - capsules of ideas in a handy, portable, crash-proof
form. And there is great deal of pleasure in curling up with a good novel and a
suitable beverage.
Reading for its own sake is not something I do often enough for my taste, but
when I do there are certain authors I particularly look forward to and genres
I gravitate towards.
|
| Fantasy
|
Terry Pratchett - these authors are not in any particular order,
but Mr Pratchett has to be top of the list, really. His Discworld novels
are one of the few series which I still read avidly (and repeatedly) from
my University days. Part of the reason for this is that his books have
changed in that time... if you read The Colour of Magic and then
compare it with Interesting Times or The Last Continent it is
far easier to point out differences than similarities. The more recent
books are not only much better written, but the whole sensibility which
informs his writing has become more concerned with the people than with the
spectacle. Intensely humanist fantasy, and funny with it.
As a reader, my view of the development of these books is that what
began as a parody of many of the conventions of fantasy (the writing,
roleplaying, and fandom) has been transformed into a distinctive fantasy
universe with its own logic and conventions. Pterry has become very skilled
at laying the seeds for future novels as well - whilst each book can be
enjoyed as a self-contained tale, there's a real sense of wanting to know
what happens next to the characters introduced and developed in each story
after that book ends. There is also a definite personal reward in spotting
some reference to an incident in an earlier book (a pleasure I am not alone
in enjoying, as evidenced by the thriving fan community and the Annotated Pratchett
Files).
Finally, I have a great fondness for Pterry as an author simply because
he really interacts with his fans. In a very small way I have been part of
this, having engaged in a brief email exchange with the great man, but
Pterry is a denizen of the newsgroups dedicated to his work and has an
obvious affection for the readers who are so enthusiastic about his books.
A real star.
|
| Science Fiction
|
Iain M. Banks - I've always been an avid reader of science fiction,
and although my tastes have moved away from the hard end of the spectrum I
still have a fondness for space opera.
Imagine my glee, then, to find a writer who evokes the majesty and awe
of space, but who also understands character development and writes well.
Iain M. Banks is such a writer, and he hasn't put out a duff one yet.
William Gibson - cyberpunk is rather out of favour now, in part I am
sure because reality is generally catching up with the vision (an
inevitable result when writing speculatively in the nearish future).
Despite that, Gibson continues to write compelling stories in a cyberpunk
style, and I always look for his next book.
Douglas Adams - I still can't really believe that Douglas Adams
is dead, nor can I believe that I missed him out of my list of favourite
authors before...
Douglas Adams but was a positive wellspring of ideas and energy.
Although he published only seven novels, he worked in so many different
areas of media and communication that to describe him as merely a writer
just does not do him justice. Indeed, his job title at The Digital Village
(which developed and published Starship Titanic) probably sums up
his talent most eloquently: Chief Fantasist.
Of all the writers I admire, he's probably the one I would most like to
be (although I'm not so keen on the whole dying at 49 bit).
Neal Stephenson - if Gibson was the elder statesman of cyberpunk,
Stephenson was the enfant terrible: Snow Crash blasted onto
the bookshelves with its unparalleled blend of breakneck speed and intense
scenery. Since that first hit, Stephenson has continued to blaze an
imaginative trail - he's not as prolific as the Pratchetts or Bankses of this
world, but there are a lot more ideas in that noggin of his and I eagerly
await future publications.
Julian May - or, to be precise, the metapsychic novels: The Saga
of the Exiles and its prequel The Milieu Trilogy are notable for
their epic scale and political complexity. In fact, these series are one of
the most rewarding I have found to read more than once simply because of
that complexity.
|
| Mainstream
|
Iain Banks - "Hang on, isn't this the same as that Iain M Banks bloke?"
Er, yes... technically he is, indeed, the same bloke, but the non-M books
are much more mainstream fiction. They are still in large part genuinely
wonderful books, featuring the same richly descriptive writing that mark
out the science fiction as so magnificently evocative but applied to more
commonplace situations.
Given Banks' extraordinary imaginative powers, 'commonplace' does not mean
'ordinary' - these books are remarkable.
Having said that, the non-genre nature of the work means that every book is
different, that there is a great deal more variation in the styles. It
is also, perhaps, a measure of my antipathy towards literary writing that
the book which is generally acknowledged to be Banks' best non-genre novel
(The Bridge) is the book I like least. Ah well.
|
| Horror
|
H.P. Lovecraft - or rather, the Cthulhu Mythos which he created.
In truth, I find Lovecraft's actual writing irritatingly poor, consisting
as it does of flat characters, unconvincing dialog, and an over-reliance on
a very small set of literary devices, but the Cthulhu Mythos is startlingly
bleak and features entities so far beyond anything human that their mere
existence renders humanity irrelevent.
Other writers have done wonderful things with the Mythos, notably August
Derleth (more or less contemporary with Lovecraft himself) and Ramsey
Campbell (in the modern era), and of course it is the basis for my
favourite roleplaying game.
Anne Rice - here I go, picking and choosing from an author's
oeuvre again... it may be gathered from elsewhere that I am a lover
of vampires as a fictional construct, and it is Rice's Vampire
Chronicles which I find most enticing.
But as I say, I have to be picky - the first three novels in the sequence
(Interview With The Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen
of the Damned) are luscious and thrilling books; the others I have read
(The Body Thief and Memnoch the Devil) are by turns silly and
boring.
Of her other work, I have only read The Mummy which is an
interesting enough book, but I didn't find it anywhere near as involving as
the Vampire books.
|
| Non-Fiction
|
|
This is a section which did not exist in the last version of this site. I
made some off-hand remark about how I didn't want to spend time recommending
particular books on Perl, but this omits the vast number of non-fiction books
which I enjoy reading and rereading so I've decided that this was a silly
omission.
Douglas R. Hofstadter - Gödel Esch Bach was
profoundly influential on me when I first read it. This book
enthusiastically introduces so many of the themes and interests which I
find interesting in computing and so on that I consider it an
Illustrated Primer for geeks.
I have others of Hofstadter's books (Metamagical Themas is
fascinating; The Mind's I is thought provoking) but GEB is
my favourite.
Richard Dawkins - the main reason I list this gentleman here is
The Blind Watchmaker. This is a lucid and (to me at least)
convincing discussion of why evolution is sufficient to explain life on
this planet.
I enjoy a lot of Dawkins' other work too, of course - he's the most
uncompromising atheist I have encountered in public life, and wrote a
deeply affecting lament for Douglas Adams upon his untimely death. I
confess that I have not read many of his more recent evolutionary writing,
though, because it is the same thing as The Blind Watchmaker - I
don't doubt its truth, I just don't need to be convinced further.
Simon Singh - in terms of his writing, mainly for The Code
Book. Cryptography is a fascinating subject, and this is a good
introduction.
His book on Fermat's Last Theorem is also very good, as is the
broadcasting he does. It's The Code Book I like most, though.
|
|
