Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Challenge: Books That Influenced My Life

Starting with the usual bit of context: the topic is from the Weekly Blogging Challenge over at Long and Short Reviews. Hit their homepage to see the current week's responses, and add a link to your own if you're so inclined.

This week's challenge is Books that Influenced My Life.

The obvious answer, of course, is "All. Of. Them."

But, okay, there are a couple that I think I've mentioned before, but not recently enough to show up in skimming back through my blogging challenge posts.

So I'm just going to go through them (again).

Starting with a comic book: Grimjack, written by Jon Ostrander and illustrated by a number of talented people across its run. It's a sort of Fantasy Noire, set in a city where dimensions meet. The main character is this cranky old mercenary, the supporting cast is amazing, and... look, I went to college early. A couple of years early. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was... I'm not entirely sure how to describe it. Part of it was that I don't think I'd have fit in at that University even if I'd been two years older, but part of it was that since I was sixteen most of the time I knew what I was doing and was fine, but when I didn't/it wasn't I was completely at sea. I found Grimjack during my freshman year, and it may actually have saved my life - the right story at the right time.

Shortly after that I discovered Cabal by Clive Barker -- oddly enough, also through the comic book that was built off the movie, Nightbreed. That became the basis for a whole new circle of friends after I switched to another university in my Junior year. In its way, it was just as important to me as Grimjack was.

The last one I'd put on this list, which I know I've mentioned before, is The Callahan Chronicles. These stories (and it is mostly, and originally, a set of short stories) are some of the most fundamentally optimistic weird science fiction that I've ever encountered. They reinforced and catered to my love of puns; they codified the belief that pain shared is lessened while joy shared is increased; and while I don't have them associated so strongly with a particular point in my life, Spider Robinson's writing did an awful lot to shape my thinking on people and what we need from each other.

What books influenced you?

8 comments:

  1. My kid started college at 17 and it was HARD. She struggled with things like not being able to sign contracts or buy her own books at the bookstore (they required a credit card). And socially, also a struggle because she wasn't legally an adult. It's great that reading helped you out!

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    1. She has my profound sympathies. It really is hard, sometimes obviously and sometimes more subtly.

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  2. Finding the right book at the right time is important. Th for coming by.

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  3. I have to agree with the 'all of them' comment. Even if you hated it, even if you don't finish it, I think you still take something away from it.

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  4. I'm so curious about all of these books.

    Thanks for the recs and for stopping by my post!

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