15 Book Meme

From fairmer 

I've just been helping with the luncheon club down at the village hall - so the chance to sit for fifteen minutes and think books is great for both brain and feet.

MEME
"This can be a quick one. Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes."

Mine are:

Andre Norton: Witch World or Year of the Unicorn
John Wyndham: Day of the Triffids or The Chrysalids
Ursula LeGuin: A Wizard of Earthsea
CS Lewis: The Horse and His Boy
Peter O'Donnell: Modesty Blaise
Wilbur Smith: Eagle in the Sky
Karen Traviss: Hard Contact
Diana Wynne Jones: Dogsbody
K M Peyton: Pennington's Seventeenth Summer
Lois McMaster Bujold: Curse of Chalion
Robert Cham Gilman: Navigator of Rhada
Elyne Mitchell: The Silver Brumby
Monica Edwards: No Going Back
Patricia Briggs: Moon Called
Terry Pratchett: Night Watch

These are not in any particular order and I've probably missed some out. Many are books that I read as a child or a teen, particularly Monica Edwards and Elyne Mitchell because I was mad on pony books for years and these two writers represent very different but well written examples of the genre. John Wyndham was my introduction to science fiction - aged 12 - and I really couldn't decide between Day of the Triffids - which I read first - or The Chrysalids - which remains my favourite Wyndham. C.S. Lewis was my transition phase from pony books to fantasy and Andre Norton's Witch World cemented my love of the genre as did Earthsea (the first three, at least). Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise is such a fantastic self-sufficient female character, but it was Willie Garvin I fell in love with. Wilbur Smith's on the list for his visceral writing of the gruesome - and for making me cry. Karen Traviss because I think she's one of the best new writers of the last decade and I'm deeply impressed with the way she took what should have been a potboiler - a franchise book to support a Star-Wars spinoff game - and turned it into an intelligent, accessible adventure with a three-dimensional cast of intriguing individual characters (not easy when they're mostly clones of the same man, so all look and sound alike). The Rhada books tapped into my fascination with telepathy awakened by The Chrysalids and remain in my mind because only the first two books were ever published in the UK and the third in the promised trilogy never appeared. I managed to get it many years later in the USA - and then discovered that it was a trilogy of four! Ho-hum. Anyone got a spare copy of Star Kahn of Rhada? (I'm a completist.) K.M. Peyton should probably have been on there for the Flambards trilogy, but Pennington is such a delightful unruly character, and the first teen to get his girlfriend pregnant in the early days of books published for YA. Lois McMaster Bujold could have been on the list for any number of her books, but Chalion is my favourite and, of course, I'm completely in love with Cazaril. I'm only lately come to to Particia Briggs whose characters are so beautifully complex. Mercy Thompson and her stormy relationship with alpha werewolf, Adam Hauptman, rocks! Patricia Briggs won by a nose, but only because Bujold - who is my current favourite writer was on there already. Last but not least, I had to include a Terry Pratchett and of all the characters Vimes is my favourite and Night Watch is puely and simply Vimes' book. A slightly more serious Terry, beautifully paced.

15 Book Meme

From fairmer 

I've just been helping with the luncheon club down at the village hall - so the chance to sit for fifteen minutes and think books is great for both brain and feet.

MEME
"This can be a quick one. Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes."

Mine are:

Andre Norton: Witch World or Year of the Unicorn
John Wyndham: Day of the Triffids or The Chrysalids
Ursula LeGuin: A Wizard of Earthsea
CS Lewis: The Horse and His Boy
Peter O'Donnell: Modesty Blaise
Wilbur Smith: Eagle in the Sky
Karen Traviss: Hard Contact
Diana Wynne Jones: Dogsbody
K M Peyton: Pennington's Seventeenth Summer
Lois McMaster Bujold: Curse of Chalion
Robert Cham Gilman: Navigator of Rhada
Elyne Mitchell: The Silver Brumby
Monica Edwards: No Going Back
Patricia Briggs: Moon Called
Terry Pratchett: Night Watch

These are not in any particular order and I've probably missed some out. Many are books that I read as a child or a teen, particularly Monica Edwards and Elyne Mitchell because I was mad on pony books for years and these two writers represent very different but well written examples of the genre. John Wyndham was my introduction to science fiction - aged 12 - and I really couldn't decide between Day of the Triffids - which I read first - or The Chrysalids - which remains my favourite Wyndham. C.S. Lewis was my transition phase from pony books to fantasy and Andre Norton's Witch World cemented my love of the genre as did Earthsea (the first three, at least). Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise is such a fantastic self-sufficient female character, but it was Willie Garvin I fell in love with. Wilbur Smith's on the list for his visceral writing of the gruesome - and for making me cry. Karen Traviss because I think she's one of the best new writers of the last decade and I'm deeply impressed with the way she took what should have been a potboiler - a franchise book to support a Star-Wars spinoff game - and turned it into an intelligent, accessible adventure with a three-dimensional cast of intriguing individual characters (not easy when they're mostly clones of the same man, so all look and sound alike). The Rhada books tapped into my fascination with telepathy awakened by The Chrysalids and remain in my mind because only the first two books were ever published in the UK and the third in the promised trilogy never appeared. I managed to get it many years later in the USA - and then discovered that it was a trilogy of four! Ho-hum. Anyone got a spare copy of Star Kahn of Rhada? (I'm a completist.) K.M. Peyton should probably have been on there for the Flambards trilogy, but Pennington is such a delightful unruly character, and the first teen to get his girlfriend pregnant in the early days of books published for YA. Lois McMaster Bujold could have been on the list for any number of her books, but Chalion is my favourite and, of course, I'm completely in love with Cazaril. I'm only lately come to to Particia Briggs whose characters are so beautifully complex. Mercy Thompson and her stormy relationship with alpha werewolf, Adam Hauptman, rocks! Patricia Briggs won by a nose, but only because Bujold - who is my current favourite writer was on there already. Last but not least, I had to include a Terry Pratchett and of all the characters Vimes is my favourite and Night Watch is puely and simply Vimes' book. A slightly more serious Terry, beautifully paced.