Inspired By...
I started writing Fate of the Gods a long time ago – more
than ten years ago now! – so pinpointing my exact inspirations for the series
gets more and more difficult with every release. But I can say that there are
several authors (and particular books) which influenced me heavily as an author
and as a person, and maybe they might do the same for you!
1) Somewhere around 1998, my mother’s friends gave me a
copy of The Crystal Singer Omnibus, by Anne McCaffrey. That trilogy was a
gateway to an incredible world of storytelling which captured my imagination
for YEARS to come. In fact, I still to this day reread the Crystal Singer
books, periodically. The adventures of Killashandra Ree and Lars Dahl just
never let me go, and I went on to read nearly all of McCaffrey’s Pern books, as
well as the Doona books, and a handful of others. If I had to point to one
author as the major influence for my writing style, I’d point to Anne
McCaffrey, and in particular, those well-loved Crystal Singer books.
2) About the same time, I started seriously reading
Heinlein – I’d read Red Planet before
then, and Podkayne of Mars also, but
not any of his works for adults. One of the Grand Masters of Science Fiction,
Heinlein tackled an incredible range of social and political topics in his
novels. He gave me a taste for books with real theological and philosophical
MEAT in them, and to this day, I can’t help but look a little oddly at anyone
who says that genre fiction is fluff. Obviously they’ve never read any Heinlein!
A few of my favorites included: I Will
Fear No Evil, Stranger in a Strange
Land, and Friday. And those
books? They had a profound impact on young adult me, in addition to writer-me!
3) Fast forward 5-7 years, and I started reading Lois
McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan books. Shards
of Honor is the space-opera-esque story of Cordelia Naismith, an amazing
woman with incredible courage. Her star-crossed love story with Aral Vorkosigan
is seriously awesome, and I recommend it times a million. Bujold is a great storyteller,
her narration is pretty much effortless, and her characters are just a blast –
primary, secondary, tertiary, they’re all compelling and well-drawn! On top of
that, she also addresses social issues as the series progresses, and even
though I don’t love Miles as much as I do Cordelia, I can’t get enough of the
world she’s created. I like to think that reading her work helped me polish
myself a little bit more as a writer, but...
Well, pick of Shards
of Honor, and my Fate of the Gods books, and you be the judge!
This product or book may have been distributed for review, this in no way affects my opinions or reviews. COPYRIGHT © 2014 LIVE TO READ
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