Friday Fives...on Saturday again, silly time differences
1. What is your favorite genre of fiction?
Fantasy, in various forms - high fantasy, dark fantasy, science fantasy,
horror-fantasy, historical/quasi-historical fantasy.
SF, time travel and alternate history in second place.
Though I also read techno-thrillers, political/historical thrillers,
the occasional legal thriller (Grisham etc), some comedy, and probably
more "chick-lit" than the wifey!
Not usually keen on crime writers like wifey is, except for the ones that
cross over in a serious way with politics/technology (Baldacci, Dubois) or
with comedy (Evanovitch).
2. Would you rather read hardcovers, paperbacks, listen to audio books, or read ebooks? Why?
I like the physicality of an actual book in my hands. Always have. Plus,
I do the vast majority of my reading these days in transit to somewhere
(buses, trains, planes) for which ebooks and audiobooks are less practical.
Mostly read paperbacks, though I do buy the occasional hardback if I really
can't wait for it to come out in paperback and can find it at reduced
price, or have vouchers etc to spend. Full-price hardbacks are just too
damned expensive over here now. Waiting for books to come out in
paperback is usually bearable because I tend to buy in bulk (wifey says
I buy too many books!) so I usually have a stack of books waiting to be read.
3. List three of your favorite books.
You're kidding. I have over fifteen hundred in the flat, and have probably
read thousands more.
Three favourite authors is tricky enough, but here goes:
Patricia Kennealy-Morrison
R A Salvatore
Mercedes Lackey
Close runners-up include:
Raymond Feist
Janny Wurts
John Ringo
David Weber
Harry Turtledove
Tom Clancy
Dale Brown
Dan Brown
Ed Greenwood
Margaret Weis
Tracy Hickman
Tad Williams
Steve White
Terry Brooks
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Diana Gabaldon
David Eddings
David Gemmell
Bernard Cornwell
Wilbur Smith
and those are just the ones that come easily to mind without
getting up and looking at my bookshelves.
People might expect an "obvious" one to be in the list above -
J R R Tolkien - but he isn't. While I consider him a first-rate
world builder and plot builder who influenced a whole
school of fantasy authors and would-be fantasy authors - myself
included in the would-be category - I'm not so impressed by his
actual prose. Sacrilegious, I know. So smack me.
4. Has a book ever influenced your life in any significant manner?
Books influence me all the time, in terms of my own writings and
story development (books and RP campaigns alike). Could also say
that my love of fantasy books led me to RPing in the first place,
which led me to mudding, which led me to Mozart, which is how I met
the two most important people in my life - wifey and Ange. So in a
roundabout way, books are why I'm a) still alive at all today, and
b) blissfully happily married.
5. What author has the most emotional impact on you? Add a little random bit of info (if you want) on the author's life that you feel applies or makes them more interesting to you.
Often the author I'm currently reading! If I can't engage emotionally
at all with a book, I'm perfectly capable of not finishing it.
That said, there are some particular books - as opposed to authors - that
elicited particularly strong emotional responses from me.
PS, I Love You (Cecilia Ahern)
Blackmantle (Patricia Kennealy-Morrison)
are both books that deal with love, death and loss in particular ways.
The first deals with a woman trying to come to terms with her beloved's
death (expected, after an illness) and finding a succession of notes he
left for her, and "events" he arranged for her, over the year after his
death. I read that one last year, when my favourite cousin was going
through a major health problem which at one point could have been
terminal, and I was in tears almost throughout the book.
The other deals with a sorceress whose husband is murdered by his
ex-lover, the revenge she takes, and her quest into the underworld to
restore him to life. It's worth noting that the author was heavily
involved with Jim Morrison, and the main characters do to some extent
parallel their real-world counterparts, dressed up in a science-fantasy
setting and with magical powers, and then crossed with an adaptation of
Odysseus' journey into Hades. When I read this one, my first girlfriend
had just died (of leukaemia) and I would have given anything to be able
to bring her back, like the heroine of this book brings her love back.
I've re-read this one several times over the years since, and I always
have a powerful reaction to it.
1. What is your favorite genre of fiction?
Fantasy, in various forms - high fantasy, dark fantasy, science fantasy,
horror-fantasy, historical/quasi-historical fantasy.
SF, time travel and alternate history in second place.
Though I also read techno-thrillers, political/historical thrillers,
the occasional legal thriller (Grisham etc), some comedy, and probably
more "chick-lit" than the wifey!
Not usually keen on crime writers like wifey is, except for the ones that
cross over in a serious way with politics/technology (Baldacci, Dubois) or
with comedy (Evanovitch).
2. Would you rather read hardcovers, paperbacks, listen to audio books, or read ebooks? Why?
I like the physicality of an actual book in my hands. Always have. Plus,
I do the vast majority of my reading these days in transit to somewhere
(buses, trains, planes) for which ebooks and audiobooks are less practical.
Mostly read paperbacks, though I do buy the occasional hardback if I really
can't wait for it to come out in paperback and can find it at reduced
price, or have vouchers etc to spend. Full-price hardbacks are just too
damned expensive over here now. Waiting for books to come out in
paperback is usually bearable because I tend to buy in bulk (wifey says
I buy too many books!) so I usually have a stack of books waiting to be read.
3. List three of your favorite books.
You're kidding. I have over fifteen hundred in the flat, and have probably
read thousands more.
Three favourite authors is tricky enough, but here goes:
Patricia Kennealy-Morrison
R A Salvatore
Mercedes Lackey
Close runners-up include:
Raymond Feist
Janny Wurts
John Ringo
David Weber
Harry Turtledove
Tom Clancy
Dale Brown
Dan Brown
Ed Greenwood
Margaret Weis
Tracy Hickman
Tad Williams
Steve White
Terry Brooks
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Diana Gabaldon
David Eddings
David Gemmell
Bernard Cornwell
Wilbur Smith
and those are just the ones that come easily to mind without
getting up and looking at my bookshelves.
People might expect an "obvious" one to be in the list above -
J R R Tolkien - but he isn't. While I consider him a first-rate
world builder and plot builder who influenced a whole
school of fantasy authors and would-be fantasy authors - myself
included in the would-be category - I'm not so impressed by his
actual prose. Sacrilegious, I know. So smack me.
4. Has a book ever influenced your life in any significant manner?
Books influence me all the time, in terms of my own writings and
story development (books and RP campaigns alike). Could also say
that my love of fantasy books led me to RPing in the first place,
which led me to mudding, which led me to Mozart, which is how I met
the two most important people in my life - wifey and Ange. So in a
roundabout way, books are why I'm a) still alive at all today, and
b) blissfully happily married.
5. What author has the most emotional impact on you? Add a little random bit of info (if you want) on the author's life that you feel applies or makes them more interesting to you.
Often the author I'm currently reading! If I can't engage emotionally
at all with a book, I'm perfectly capable of not finishing it.
That said, there are some particular books - as opposed to authors - that
elicited particularly strong emotional responses from me.
PS, I Love You (Cecilia Ahern)
Blackmantle (Patricia Kennealy-Morrison)
are both books that deal with love, death and loss in particular ways.
The first deals with a woman trying to come to terms with her beloved's
death (expected, after an illness) and finding a succession of notes he
left for her, and "events" he arranged for her, over the year after his
death. I read that one last year, when my favourite cousin was going
through a major health problem which at one point could have been
terminal, and I was in tears almost throughout the book.
The other deals with a sorceress whose husband is murdered by his
ex-lover, the revenge she takes, and her quest into the underworld to
restore him to life. It's worth noting that the author was heavily
involved with Jim Morrison, and the main characters do to some extent
parallel their real-world counterparts, dressed up in a science-fantasy
setting and with magical powers, and then crossed with an adaptation of
Odysseus' journey into Hades. When I read this one, my first girlfriend
had just died (of leukaemia) and I would have given anything to be able
to bring her back, like the heroine of this book brings her love back.
I've re-read this one several times over the years since, and I always
have a powerful reaction to it.
posted by Muranog @ 12:52 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home