On Reading...
The thing that most writers are told to do that they don’t actually go
and do, is read other books to see where they’re going wrong with their own writing.
I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone out there, so I made a decision a
few months back to get back into reading things that other people had written,
and in doing so I found out a few things.
The world has changed somewhat from where it was when I was last
reading things, I’m a big fan of a number of the older classics, things like
Gibsons Neuromancer, Morgans Altered Carbon, Milans Cybernetic Samurai, and all
those other books that I read when I was younger and had the time to sit down
and read through things in detail. I
recognise that the world those books were written in has changed, is no longer
there, the fears that drove writers in those days are not the fears that drive
them today, and so too, the writing changes to fit the new generation.
With this in mind, I picked up a number of books, and I made sure that
they weren’t in the identikit mould that a number of authors find themselves
placed in because their publisher knows that’s what sells.
You know what I’m talking about...
Take Jack Reacher for example, not the Tom Cruise version, but any of
the books, they follow the same pattern...
Reacher arrives
Finds injustice
Has a fight
Has a shag
Has another fight
Rights a wrong
Leaves...
Repeat Ad Infinitum...
I’m not decrying this as a bad thing to do, a lot of people like
reading books that are similar to ones that they’ve enjoyed, David Gemmell, one
of my favourite authors of all time, often wrote books that were very similar
to each other. The difference there was
that he wasn’t worried if he ended up killing the hero half way through the
book, and it’s things like that that keep you on your toes, and I like it when
books keep me on my toes. When you read a Jack Reacher novel, you know he's not going to die, not until Lee Childs finally decides he's done with it, and I can't see that happening for some time, and as with games, an unkillable protagonist is only fun for so long...
So the short list is as follows:
Station Eleven – Emily St John Mandel
Anciliary Justice – Ann Lecke
The Expanse Series – James S.A.Corey
Ready Player One – Ernest Cline
There’ll be more after this to be sure, but these will do for
starters...
