The Book Tag Game

[andrewducker]

List 10 books that have stayed with you in some way. Don't take more than a few minutes and do not think too hard. They do not have to be the "right" books or great works of literature, just ones that have affected you in some way. Nominate 10 friends:

Books
Sourcery
The Schroedinger's Cat Trilogy
The Baroque Cycle
Steel Beach
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Neuromancer
Brave New World
The Earthsea Series

Comics
Transmetropolitan
Miracleman
Sandman
Powers
The Invisibles
Signal To Noise
Lucifer
Box Office Poison
Cerebus
From Hell

I've listed books and comics, because my original list had some comics in it, and then got too long, so I "cheated" and had ten of each. And this is largely a book list from my youth, books that have taken up space in my head for 20 years and not let go. Other than The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, which I recommended to someone just this afternoon, and you should all read.

Nominating: matgb, wig, dalglir, darkoshi, quirkytizzy, bart_calendar, manintheboat, randomdreams, widgetfox, and brixtonbrood.

Fuck it, and anyone reading this who hasn't posted in the last three days. Now you have something to post.

Comments

[dalglir]

In no particular order:

Titus Groan (and the whole Gormenghast trilogy) by Mervyn Peake. I read this on the bus between the stop near my home and IBM Warwick one summer.

Perdido street station (and any Bas-lag book) by China Miéville. Wonderful, immersive stuff that evokes Mervyn Peake's style.

Excession (and any Culture novel) by Iain M Banks.

Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien. My dad used to read this me in my pre-teens with hot chocolate at bed time. Magic.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (and all of the 'trilogy') by Douglas Adams

Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson. Also magical.

Legend by David Gemmell. Toss up between this and Waylander. My exposure to Gemmell is all the fault of a chap called Nick McGregor. My wife has also been evangelised.

Encyclopaedia of Prehistory. Big orange hardback thing. No idea where this now. Heavily illustrated. Lots of pictures of dinosaurs and geological cross sections, dealing from the earth forming to the modern day. Magical childhood book.

Amateur Astronomy. Big white hardback book. Still got this one. Planets, black holes, nebula and stars, oh my! Magic. Captivating. Responsible for my wanting to be an astronomer at the age of 6.

Corum (Swords Trilogy) by Michael Moorcock. Big fan of Moorcock's early eternal champion stuff. I enjoyed the Corum books the most.

[dalglir]

Also: Terran Trade Authority. Spaceships 2000-2100AD. Fucking awesome book filled with sci-if cover art but with detailed back stories and all wrapped into a common 'history'.

I was given a copy of this around the age of 9 by a friend of the family. A year later and without asking, stepfather cut a page out of it to cannibalise for a collage. Couldn't look at it again after that.

28 years later bought another, uncut copy from eBay. Hurray!

[andrewducker]

Oh God. I had so many Eternal Champion books!

(You should totally post this on your journal and tag others in, if you can)