Benable — create shareable lists of things you recommend!
E.g., products you love, local businesses, travel recs - you can add anything to a Benable list!
I like ... BOOKS.
18
items I like LOTS of books. I read (and write) mainly science fiction and fantasy, and I have done for decades. Every so often a book makes a BIG impact. Here are some of the books that have made the biggest impact on ME over the years.
Sections
2
Fantasy Books
Science Fiction
Fantasy Books
Epic fantasy needs dragons, strange creatures, strange people, and magic (of course).
I remember how much I distrusted Strider when we first meet him, and how bizarre and unnecessary Tom Bombadil was.
The Fellowship of the Ring: Lord of the Rings
The awkward middle child of the LOTR trilogy, but it's also where THINGS GET GOOD.
The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien - 9780261102361
The finale WITH the Appendices! It's hard to explain the sadness I felt when this book was finished, because it was over, and I could never read it “for the first time” again. Now that it's been half a lifetime, maybe I'll be able to enjoy it in a wh...
The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3) by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit was my introduction into Middle Earth and Tolkien. I was hooked. Although it's a children's book at its heart, it's also a thrilling fantasy adventure through a world of magic and mystery. But I don't need to tell you about Middle Earth, d...
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien
The preamble in Toronto was actually what hooked me at first, but the Canadians-in-fantasyland plot spoke to me in deep ways.
The Summer Tree (The Fionavar Tapestry, #1) by Guy Gavriel Kay
Besides the Celtic-themed fantasy world, I loved the cover art. The world is so vivid I totally believe it is a real place, somewhere out there.
The Wandering Fire (The Fionavar Tapestry, #2) by Guy Gavriel Kay
The grand finale of the trilogy, containing a scene, and an idea, that has stayed with me for decades. The idea that a god (a timeless magical being) could lose their immortality, or choose their humanity, by accepting that they were “written into ti...
Nowadays, I think of noting down story ideas as “writing them into time”. Which also reminds me: Tad Williams. (see later)
Nowadays, I think of noting down story ideas as “writing them into time”. Which also reminds me: Tad Williams. (see later)
The Darkest Road - Guy Gavriel Kay - Paperback
Science Fiction
I have this series in heavy hardbacks that I lugged around the Toronto subway for months in 2000 and 2001. A pendulous story in a “near-future” world of virtual reality and espionage.
City of Golden Shadow (Otherland, #1) by Tad Williams
One of the things I love about this series is that the characters trapped in virtual reality travel numerous fantasy lands. One is a massive dilapidated mansion that seems to go on forever.
One of the trapped characters speaks their scenes, with the idea being that they are IN a computer, so somewhere, somehow, the things they say will be recorded in code and thereby preserved. This is a bit like the scifi version of being “written into...
One of the trapped characters speaks their scenes, with the idea being that they are IN a computer, so somewhere, somehow, the things they say will be recorded in code and thereby preserved. This is a bit like the scifi version of being “written into...
River of Blue Fire (Otherland, #2) by Tad Williams
I read this series over so many months, and the story was so intricate and involved that sometimes I felt like I was forgetting important plot points, especially from the first volume.
Mountain of Black Glass (Otherland, #3) by Tad Williams
Now, I can't remember how it finishes. It was 25 years ago, after all. But when I finished the series I remember a sense of the sheer weight of the plotting that Tad Williams had pulled off. It was incredible, and daunting at the same time.
Sea of Silver Light (Otherland, #4) by Tad Williams
If there is one story that I would hold onto forever, it is this. This “soft” science fiction is more about how people interact with each other, rather than pseudoscience technobabble. No “bipass the warm manifolds via the Jeffreys tubes in section 1...
It's all about a shunned scientist trying to save the future.
It's all about a shunned scientist trying to save the future.
Foundation (Foundation, #1) by Isaac Asimov
The best laid plans are ruined by something unforeseen. Here, that is the Mule, a genetic mutation which upsets the galactic applecart.
Foundation and Empire : Asimov, Isaac
The thrilling and mind-blowing thing for me about these first three books, the original trilogy as it were, is that they were originally released as short stories and novellas and then kind of tied together into a novel format.
This was something I hadn't realized was possible before.
This was something I hadn't realized was possible before.
Second foundation | Asimov | Fandom
The fourth book in the series written, and the first in the 80s. As well as the first written directly as a novel.
I loved this cover. All my copies had the related covers, I'm so sad I don't have them anymore, but I never forgot them.
I loved this cover. All my copies had the related covers, I'm so sad I don't have them anymore, but I never forgot them.
Foundation's Edge (Foundation, #4) by Isaac Asimov
This book is the overlap of the Foundation series with the Robot series. We visit the familiar Spacer worlds from the Robot novels, but they are now very different.
I loved this sense of world building, that so many of Asimov's stories existing somewhere in the timeline of the same universe.
It's something I've tried to emulate in my own writings.
I loved this sense of world building, that so many of Asimov's stories existing somewhere in the timeline of the same universe.
It's something I've tried to emulate in my own writings.
Foundation and Earth (Foundation, #5) by Isaac Asimov
The final book written in the series, bringing the story more or less up to the beginning of the original trilogy from the 1950s.
I remember there being some controversy about the character Wanda.
That made me more aware of that readers sometimes don't enjoy being toyed with by a writer, even posthumously.
I remember there being some controversy about the character Wanda.
That made me more aware of that readers sometimes don't enjoy being toyed with by a writer, even posthumously.
Forward the Foundation : Asimov, Isaac
The penultimate story written in the series, the first of two prequels. Politics and intrigue on Trantor, and more about the Zeroth Law of Robotics – because it is even more important than the FIRST law.
Review of Prelude to Foundation by - Isaac Asimov