Tyler Cowen and Peter Suderman have both compiled (non-definitive) lists of books which have influenced them the most over the years.  I have thought about this some, and come to the decision that the books I read as a child were by far the most influential – far more influential than anything I read later as a college student or the ones I read nowadays.  So here’s a list, from memory, of the most influential books I read as a child.

The Lord of the Rings – This one is the obvious choice for a fantasy reader, I suppose.  I read it in fourth grade for the first time and loved it, and have read it several times since. It is still the definitive work of epic fantasy, I believe.  The only downside is that so many people attempted to imitate Tolkien when they should have been writing their own ideas.

The Prydain Chronicles – Lloyd Alexander was never as well known as Tolkien, but his Prydian books were wonderful young adult fantasy novels steeped in Welsh myth.  So while some of the characters mirrored those in Tolkien’s Middle Earth, the stories themselves were unique and interesting and lively.  I read these ones countless times.

The Dark is Rising Sequence – This series taps into the old Welsh and British mythology fairly heavily, mixing the modern world and Merlin and time travel together in an epic clash between good and evil.  One of many books I read and loved that transports us from the mundane world into one much darker and more fierce.

A Wrinkle in Time – This was one of those books that really stopped me in my tracks. Free will, conformity, and the seduction of evil are all present here.

The Giver – Another glimpse into totalitarianism and conformity and the dangers of ‘sameness’ and ignorance of history.  Less fantastical than my typical childhood read, but sort of shocking also.

The Bridge to Terabithia – They made a movie about this book recently.  Please don’t watch it.  Sometimes movies can enrich the book experience, but not when they are mangled by over-Disneyfication. Terabithia helped me understand tragedy and loss better.

The Castle in the Attic – To be honest, I can barely remember this book, but like Narnia it helped transport me into another world – something I did a lot of as a kid.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court – This was a good, funny, cynical take on the King Arther stories.  Very helpful to round out all that heroism and chivalry with some good, honest, witty realism.

Narnia – Like the Lord of the Rings, these books are simply staples of young adult fantasy.

King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table – I have read so many King Arthur books at this point I can barely keep track of them.  This was one of the first.

I Am the Cheese – This was far more dystopian a tale than I typically read as a child, and still sort of haunting whenever I think about it.

Some honorable mentions:

Watership Down, Lord of the Flies, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, The Wind in the Willows, The Last Unicorn, the Redwall books, the books of Roald Dahl and many others…

I should probably put child’s things away at this point and read more serious works of fiction and non-fiction – more philosophy, theology, et alia.  And yet … perhaps it is having children of my own now, or perhaps it is simply that I read to escape, but when it comes down to choosing I still find myself with some fantasy novel in hand, or some work of science fiction or mystery.  Yes – I do dip into non-fiction at times.  The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is certainly one of the most influential histories of my adult life. A Short History of Nearly Everything has been one of my favorite non-fiction reads in the past few years.  Crime and Punishment is hardly fantasy, and has been one of my favorite works of fiction that I’ve read since high school.  I blazed through a great deal of literature both contemporary and classic during college.  Some of it was quite good.

But the books that I’ve really loved have been Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell; the George R. R. Martin books; even the Harry Potter books.  True – much of the fantasy genre is fairly awful. Perhaps that’s why I’m so glad whenever I do find something good – even older children’s fantasy that I missed somehow as a child, like the work of Diana Wynne Jones.

What I’d like to read soon are the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks. And Jane Jacobs. And Diane Ravitch’s latest. And Joe Abercrombie (who, like Banks, is mysteriously missing from the local library…) And some Chesterton.

I’m currently reading  the sprawling Malazan books of Steven Erikson (now on House of Chains); and After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre – though I do not spend enough time reading (and I have a suspicion that this will remain the case until my children are older.) I’ve also got Mieville’s The City and the City lined up, though I admit to being a little stuck in Erikson’s series, making it hard for me to move on to other things.

So much to read, so little time.

N+1 reviews the Millenium trilogy, a Swedish crime series that takes a surprisingly dim view of the welfare state: [Read more →]

Following up a little on my last post wherein I quoted Peter Suderman lamenting the lack of direction and planning for the show Battlestar Galactica, let me just add that two other shows I watch have fallen into similar traps.

Heroes started out quite good and has since deteriorated into what I can best describe as an ad hoc show full of very lackluster episodic seasons.  There is no over-arching plot that weaves the “chapters” together.  We never do encounter the Hiro Nakamura of the future – the hardened, somber counterpart to the goofy modern Hiro who we first meet in Season One – after that first meeting of Future Hiro and Peter.  Hiro tells Peter to “save the cheerleader, save the world.”  To me this was a long-term project, not just something Peter was meant to achieve that season.  But the writer’s felt differently.  And the apocalyptic future we were introduced to in season one is all but gone from following seasons.  Future Hiro is gone, too.

Villains shift, and plots die off.  The world is threatened time and again by one villain after the next, but we’re never really immersed in an extended battle of good and evil.  There’s no high stakes, because nothing is sustained.  Characters drift apart and then come back together without any rhyme or reason.  There is no long view even now, after however many seasons.  It’s maddening, really.  I don’t know why I keep watching.

I used to feel similarly about Lost, but seasons 4 and 5 have disabused me of this.  By season 3 I came to the conclusion that the writers themselves were hopelessly lost.   The introduction of new characters and new plot lines seemed haphazard at best.  And the constant addition of new extras – new crash survivors – became such a pet peeve I could barely take it anymore.  (this is still a pretty big pet peeve, actually)

But then things changed.  They tightened up the plot, cut out a lot of the unnecessary narrative and back-story, and began focusing on tying together the various plot-threads and points in the past, present, and future in such a way that is both gripping and – for a time-traveling story – makes enough sense to keep us from rolling our eyes.

I would argue this is the difference between a good show and a bad show – the ability of its writers and producers to be patient, to take into account the long view, and to extend the plot out beyond just the season or the episode in question.  That’s not easy.  I’m glad Lost seems to be back on track.

P.S. – I watch all these on my computer which invariably means I’m behind on everything – at least for Lots.  No spoilers please.

(Image via DRM Artwork)

The other day I was sitting around drinking beers with a friend and talking about magic.  Specifically, we were discussing the abuse or misuse of magic in fantasy writing.  It is my theory that, among other things, the success of a fantasy book, aside from all the basic prerequisites of good fiction (i.e. plot, character development, etc.) – requires that magic is done well.

Alas, in much of what passes for fantasy these days, magic is not done well.  It is often used too much, and it is even more often the most unimaginative element of the story next to the characters (often cheap Gandalf knock-offs residing in cheap Middle Earth knock-off worlds).  Indeed, aside from the formulaic character development and overuse of standard fantasy races – elven ranger, curmudgeonly dwarf, human fighter, barbarian priestess, and so forth – which read like D&D characters more than actual people, the sad state of magic in fantasy is probably the worst thing about the genre. [Read more →]

I read Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons several years ago.  I liked some of the puzzles, and the mystery and suspense were gripping enough, but at the end of the day Brown’s prose makes Stephen King look like Oscar Wilde.  If I want a good page-turner I’ll pick up a Grisham novel.  Even so, after reading Angels I decided that, if only to better understand the hype, I’d read The DaVinci Code.

Big mistake.  What a waste of life. In this one, Brown manages to make his former self look Oscar Wilde-like in comparison.  Angels & Demons was much better than its sequel – though this really isn’t saying much.

Now, these are the sort of books that can be read in any order.  The films, for instance, have come out in reverse chronological order and it won’t matter a bit to the story-lines.  Many people refer to Angels as the sequel simply because it was never as popular as Code.

In any case, many critics are perturbed by the anti-religious and especially anti-Catholic message in these books.  I understand this.  I think I’m more bothered by the shoddy writing myself.  I don’t much care what anybody writes about religion, so long as they do it well.  His Dark Materials, for instance, by Phillip Pullman, was a joy to read.  Well, the first book was a joy to read – the second two were sort of like a bad acid trip – but still, at least Pullman cares about his craft.  Dan Brown, it would appear, does not.  Fantastic twists and spooky conspiracy theories does not a good novel make.

It does sell copy, though, and movie deals.  I haven’t seen either film and I probably won’t unless I feel compelled to review this latest one.  I tell you, I just don’t get it.  The DaVinci Code was so God-awful bad – so boring – I just don’t understand its appeal.  I mean, is there another book out there with as disappointing an ending?  And Angels & Demons is not that much better – though the end is certainly more riveting.  Give me Robert Ludlum any day over this hokey-pokey pseudo-religious gobbeldy-gook.  Or give me hokey-pokey pseudo-religious gobbeldy-gook, but make it compelling!  Care about your writing enough to add just a tiny bit of loveliness to the prose, a tiny bit of depth to the characters, something.  Anything.  Clever ambigrams simply will not do.

“I may as well admit that I have been more influenced (as a person) by my childhood readings of Tolkien and Lewis than I have been by any philosophers I read in college and grad school. The events and characters in Narnia and Middle Earth shaped my ideals, my dreams, my goals. Kant just annoyed me.”  N.D. Wilson

Like Wilson, I find myself far more influenced by the writings of Tolkien and other fantasists and fiction writers – C.S. Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L’Engle, etc. – than by the work of philosophers, theologians, and political theorists.  I read The Lord of the Rings when I was nine (the first time) and it was a pivotal, life-changing event.  I had already plowed through Lewis by first grade, and the Prydain novels by second or third.  Other fantasies and legends filled my young mind, shaped my vision of the world and other worlds.  Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence; numerous Arthurian legends and re-tellings; L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels; and countless other tales of magic and mystery and heroism.  Even Willow has its place in my heart – long before he had ambitions for public office, Val Kilmer was simply Mad Martigan to me.

And yes, I devoured these and other works of fiction when I could have been reading Kant or Plato or Hayek.  Even as I grew older.  While Mark Twain could keep me up into the little hours, Karl Marx would send me straight to sleep.   I read George R.R. Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice (incomplete but amazing) series when I could have been reading Augustine.  (More on Martin later…)  I read Susanna Clarke’s extraordinary Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell when I could have been reading Keynes or Friedman.    I’m reading the third installment of Gregory Maguire’s Wicked trilogy – A Lion Among Men – now, when I should be soaking myself in political science…. [Read more →]

Looking for a glimpse into the conservative foreign policy id? Try National Review’s Rich Lowry, whose latest techno-thriller has just been published:

After learning that an Iranian scientist is in the process of developing nuclear weapons on Iranian soil, all-but-forgotten Spymaster Stewart Banquo initiates a rogue special operation. With the assistance of his most trusted agent, Robert Wallets, Banquo recruits Peter Johnson, a dissolute, morally bankrupt liberal news journalist, to travel to Iran. Johnson poses as a sympathetic reporter writing a piece on the country’s nuclear facilities. His mission: to kill the scientist.

[Read more →]