You may have seen this as an ongoing meme on all the social media networks. So here’s my version!
To reduce this list to a mere ten wasn’t easy for me , but I’ve given it a go. These books are not the best of each author necessarily, but ones that made an impact on me for reasons I will explain as we go along. So, in no real order:
- TV21 Annuals: These were the yearly summary of a weekly comic with strips based on popular UK television at the time: Gerry Anderson’s Stingray, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, which later included Star Trek, Doctor Who and Land of the Giants. I remember reading these from the age of four or five, such was their impact. I know Stephen Baxter’s a fan as well. My first was the 1967 annual (see right).
2. H. G. Wells: The War of the Worlds. A classic I could get away with reading at school, because it was ‘literature’. So too The Time Machine. Avoid the awful recent BBC production though if you are expecting something similar to the book.
3. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: A Study in Scarlet. Where I discovered the importance of character and plot. To be fair, it is not quite genre, but I read them all and then went and read the Professor Challenger tales (The Lost World, The Poison Belt), which were more SF-nal.
4. Tunnel in the Sky by Robert Heinlein. As mentioned HERE, my first buy into ‘proper’ SF, bought in a second hand bookshop in about 1972 (I think!) I still have it. This led to:
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke. My first ‘big’ experience of Sir Arthur, again borrowed from school in about 1977. I had come across his short stories by this point, but it was his novels that really gave me the big ideas. This led to The City and the Stars and Rendezvous with Rama.
6. The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov – which I borrowed from my Dad, with iconic Chris Foss covers. I have a signed print of the original covers over my desk as I type this (see below).
7. Dracula by Bram Stoker. My first foray into a ‘proper’ Horror novel, fuelled by illicit watchings of Hammer Horror movies late at night. This was more interesting than Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde, and most importantly, a bigger book! It’ll be interesting to see how the new BBC production compares.
This led to:
8. M. R. James Collected Stories: ghost stories with a slight shudder, again fuelled by viewings of the annual BBC television Ghost Stories at Christmas.
9. Magician by Raymond Feist. This rekindled my interest in Fantasy, which after Tolkien & Donaldson had waned a little in favour of SF by the early 1980’s. I originally borrowed this edition from my local library and later was able to buy it as remaindered stock! Ray kindly signed it for me in the early 2000’s.
10. ASH A Secret History by Mary Gentle. Is it Fantasy? Alternate History? Science Fiction? This doorstop of a book (it was published as five books in the US) is not for everyone – it is quite violent, and very much so in the days before Grimdark! – but it is a book I can read and re-read and still find it mind-boggling. It creeps up on you and stays with you, I find, even twenty years on. The graphic descriptions of medieval life are quite shocking, but then things begin to get odd and get odder…
So there we are. It’s not perfect – I know how male-centric that list is, for example – but it is what I could get my hands on when younger. A new list of inspirations would be rather different, I think.
Thanks to Rob H. Bedford for inspiring me long ago to name just 10 books in this challenge.
