The Wood Beyond The World Forum Your reading history

This is especially for new members, but, please, older Woodfolk, feel free to chime in.

What books (fantasy and otherwise) have you read that you feel particularly influenced you, in your decision to write, your choice of subjects, your style, etc?

Of course I started with Tolkien -- though I'd read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass, and E. Nesbit's Story of the Amulet as a kid.  I read a lot of the predecessors and contemporaries of Tolkien -- Lord Dunsany, William Morris (whose work provides the name of this group), Lewis, James Branch Cabell, E.R. Eddison, Mervyn Peake.  When all the Tolkien imitators started being published I lost interest in fantasy.

I came back through my sons' interest in Harry Potter. Together we've explored Redwall and Discworld.  I branched out into sci-fi with Orson Scott Card, and was definitely inspired by his Alvin Maker fantasy series.

 

Okay, your turn.

^{Hmmm, how does one sum up a life time of reading or who are really big influences.   I will say this, I like alot of the older masters on the various genre's than the new writers of today.}

  

^{Like many my age, I started off with HG Wells, Burroughs, and Carol Lewis before high school.  Then towards my mid teens, my mother bought me a book by Andre Norton, Daybreak 2250, and my life long love affair of all things Norton began.   She is a very large influence for me since I got to know her through correspondences and meeting her at scifi connections.} 

 

^{By my early twenties, I was reading alot of different genre's.   Mysteries, Horrors, Detective, Action thrillers as well as my continuing love affair with SF&F.   John McDonald became a favorite with his Travis McGee series and in my humble opinion, he is better than Clive Cussler.  I also liked many of the SF masters, like Herbert, Asimov, and Anderson, but I kept coming back to Fantasy Fiction because of Tolkien who blew me away.} 

 

^{During the 70's I read everything I could get my hands on by John Norman, Sharon Green, CJ Cherryl, Fred Saberhagen, Robert Jordan, and many others that are a cross over between Fantasy and SF.  I can not even remember them all as there were so many during the 70's.} 

 

^{By the eighties, there was a big explosion of Fantasy Fiction, which I attribute to the popularity of Dungeon and Dragons as well as the SCA.   Authors like Weis and Hickman, Donaldson, Eddings and all things McCaffery.  So many Fantasy writers popped onto the scene that I can not even remember them all.  Some were one hit wonders, other a single series, and then they disappeared.}

 

^{The nineties saw a continuation of mostly the same with a few new writers sprinkled in here and there, but by then my reading had slowed due to the demands of work, family and other activities like fishing, bowling, and camping. Anything family related.}

 

^{Since 2000, I am very far behind on my writers and reading....Terry Prachett is someone I want to start reading, and I hear that Eddings and Donaldson are both reviving their big series sellers as is Norman.   I tend to be a creature of habit and once a writer has me hooked I want to read everything they write.}

 

^{Right now...one of my favorite authors has yet to be discovered outside of this group.   Leah Davidson.}  

 

^Nick.

Blushing like mad.

 

Nick, if you start on Pratchett, I recommend the first of the Watch books, Guards! Guards!  The Night Watch of Ankh-Morpork provides some of the most satisfying stories, as well as goofy comedy, in the whole Discworld canon.

Okay, you two, get a room!

Just kidding.

As for me, I'd have to say Tolkien-big surprise, huh?  I also loved David Eddings' Belgariad series, The Fionivar Tapestry, Ursala Leguinn,  Saberhagen,  Zelazny, Tanith Lee, and, of course, J. K. Rowling.

Love me some fairy tales, too!

I'll throw into the mix Donaldson and his Thomas Covenant series. He does have a tendency to be overly verbose but I find his take on things refreshing in the Tolkien-ripoff age. Another one would be Mary Stewart and her Merlin trilogy. And if we are going to go way before Tolkien, we have Homer, Thomas Mallory and the various tales in the Mabinogion.

I'm not sure what Tolkien thought of Mallory.  Maybe I knew about it, just forgot.  I'd suspect he'd object to him taking the raw Arthurian material and dressing it up in the forms of his own time.  T. H. White gave that circumstance a lot of thought when he wrote the four books of The Once and Future King. He pictured himself in the twentieth century, looking back at Mallory in his century, looking back at the Arthur stories at their source.  His difficultly was figuring out how to be true to the material, but make a modern novel of it.  It all got a bit Freudian, with White.

I'm not surprised that Tolkien might have issues with Mallory. I have issues with Mallory. He cobbled together so many Arthurian threads to make the Mort D'Arthur, be Monmount (sic) to the French adaptations. But it presents something we have lost in our modern age: chivalry. Yeah, it is overly long and could have used a good editor but it draws you into a world long forgotten and most likely never really existed. Even in the violence, there are rules and honour. Something I find lacking in our current age, for the most part.

Which is one reason I love the Mary Stewart books. When I first read them, long time ago, I remember thinking: yeah this could be how Merlin might have been. She strips away the "magic" and gives a plausible history on the legends, be it Stonehenge, the fighting dragons, etc. The essence of Mallory is there with a hint of reality and dash of spiritualism.

Lokie, I have to agree that Donaldson's Thomas Covenant Cronicles rocks modern LOTR.  Humor, action, images, politics, evil vs good, and his characters are memorable just like Tolkein.  I believe even Leah would love the series.

Thomas Covenant, the Unbeleaver.  White Gold Welder. 

I hear he is trying to revive the series with a third trilogy.

Nick.

First, I want Nick to know I can't read his tiny font without a microscope.

 

As for reading list.  I'll stick to fiction:

 

Besides Tom Robbins, our greatest living "expressionist..."

 

Olaf Stapledon wrote huge ideas, especially LAST AND FIRST MEN, in which he covers several billion years of human evolution in less than 100,000 words.

 

Asimov's Foundation Trilogy made me want to be a writer.  Again, big ideas, painting the whole human cosmos for us.

 

Lord Valentine's Castle, by Robert Silverburg, creates Majipoor, a complete planet masterfully spun up just for you.

 

Besides Robbins, Jack Vance has the voice I love.  Read his The Demon Princes, starring Kirth Gersen.  They are a collection of five short novels.  In each book there are always three persons who could be the evil person Gersen is looking to rid the universe of.  There is always a girl, a genius or two, both good and evil, and a wonderfully imaginative use of language.

 

I hesitate to mention the next author (I tire of hearing about his "church," which I have no idea about, and no idea whether it has been made something he never dreamed), but one of the greatest works of all time comes from him.  It is a dekaology (ten books) called Mission Earth, and it is the funniest, most irreverent story of an Earth invasion ever thought up, constantly moving, impossibly  imaginative.  When Heller arrives to save Earth from invasion by cleaning its environment, he identifies the king of the planet, who owns all the resources on it and thorugh hhis coniglomerates seeks to spread his sick outlook to every human being.  The antagonists name is John D. Rockecenter.  The name of the author is L. Ron Hubbard.  If you haven't read it, don't even quip.

William,

Unsure why  my fonts are coming out so (small) when I tried to make them extra large knowing your eyesight problems.  : )

And as to Hubbard...I like some of his writings, and Mission Earth I liked to start off but by about the third book I grew weary of his humor.   Different strokes as they say. 

Good news though, I recently read that Tom Cruise's child might actually be concieved by Hubbards frozen sperm.    Long like the trashloids.  Long live Scientology.

Nick.

Like so many of you, I loved Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and also the two book series Mordant's Need. I also read a lot of David Eddings especially The Elenium (I love Sparhawk) and of course Tolkien (but I find him a bit too longwinded for my tastes- give me battles, not hobbits wandering around Mt Doom and all those songs).Also Stephen King, Dean Koontz, James Herbert, John Wyndham and lately Kathy Reichs. I recently read all seven Harry Potter books back to back for the first time and am currently reading Jane Eyre again.

My all time favourite is The Magician by Raymond E Fiest. That book and the series linked to it gave me the inspiration to write fantasy.

Have you discovered Sara Douglass and her The Axis Trilogy? She's Australian, so I'm not sure if her books have had much attention overseas. They are really good especially if you like sexy, heroic men (which I do. Give me a man with a big sword anyday.)

Gayna

 

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Nick's going to love that last remark, Gayna.  Except the hero in his stuff (Nathin)  has a big staff.  (He's plenty sexy and heroic, though.)

gerrr-rowl.  

A big staff is almost as good as a big sword. I look forward to reading some of Nick's stuff.
Gayna

Bumping for the newer members.

Bumping for the new members? Now, now, Leah!

I also wanted to throw in some non-fantasy novels I find that influence my writing. One that might spark some discussion is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. There are threads of her philosophy that I am using in Tangled Threads. On a different tangent I throw in Nevile Shute. Be it Trustee from a Toolroom, On the Beach, etc., he is writer that can bring simple, ordinary characters to life and jump off the page. Reading his books some time ago made me want to focus on regular characters that, in time, get involved in extraordinary situations. Yet stay regular at the end.

I loved On the Beach, although it has been a while since I read it. It is one of those books that just stays with you. It makes you wonder what you'd do you knew the world was dying. Would you accept it or fight to the end?

Now, now this is certainly a challenge to fulfill. Sadly all of the writers spoken of I do not know and I necessarily cannot fathom. Meaning that I've not heard of them.

Well, pervious writers and reading history....

I began with the Hobbit, I was told to read it, and I had to read it since my parents basically assigned it to me. After that I spent the next two, yes two years reading LOTR. As a child I couldn't really get past how much in the 6th grade I hated tha tone chapter with them running through the damn forest, just this year I reread it and loved that chapter.

So after a long time reading that I picked up Dune and complete that to Chapterhouse. Read the entire Dune series and I own the last two books. I read Watership down and saw how well a basic brer rabbit story can be made into a fantastical mythology.

I devoured earthsea, fell in love with Pern, and then dreamt of various dreams from the internet. I read the Simarillion and saw how well mythos can be.

So book series I have read, and hopefully their authors.

J.R.R Tolkien: Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Simarillion, Lost Tales

C.S. Lewis: Entire Chronicles of Narnia (Didn't like it much.)

Ursula LeGuine: Wizard of Earthsea, Tombs of Atuan, Tales of Earthsea, The Other Wind

Anne MacGaffrey: Dragons of Pern Series, Freedmom's Landing Series

Frank Herbert: Dune Chronicles

Brian Herbert and Ian Anderson: Dune House Trilogy, Butlerian Jihad Trilogy, Sandworms of Dune, Hunters of Dune

Richard Adams: Watership Down

Jacqueline Carey: Kushiel's Legacy

Robert Jordan: Wheel of Time

George R.R Martin: A Song of Ice and Fire

Mercedes Lackey: Obsidian Trilogy

SL Farrel: Cloudmages

Anne Bishop: Black Jewels Series

Anne Rice: Vampire Chronicles

Catsohori, I'm with you on the Vampire Chronicles.  The Vampire Lestat, Blood and Gold, and Queen of the Damned were my favorites.

Welcome and happy writiing.