Whether consciously or not, writers are influenced by the writing craft of others. Certain novels will always remain as beacons of such influence. Suite101 talks to Science Fantasy author Hal Duncan to find out which five books he identifies among all the others.
Suite 101: What are the five books that will always stay with you?
Hal Duncan: The Borribles, Michael de Larrabeiti
Talking of Peter Pan, this is like Pan set in 70s London with the Lost Boys as snot-nosed, thieving, squabbling street urchin oiks. Borribles are kids who've run away from home to live in squats and never grow up. New Borribles have to earn their name in an adventure, so in this book - the first of a trilogy - a group of them is drawn from across the boroughs of London and sent on a Dirty Dozen style mission, each of them to assassinate (in a variety of delightfully vicious ways) a different member of the rumble High Command, rumbles being sort of human-sized talking rat-creatures that bear a remarkable resemblance to the Wombles of a rather beloved BBC children's series. The sequel has a decapitation-by-shovel. Every child should read these books.
Nova, Samuel R. Delany
I was tempted to say Dhalgren because it's a work that I love just as much as Nova - maybe even more. But, the reality is that there's way more than five books that will always stay with me, and every great book is great for different reasons, so it's not really about trying to decide which is "better". This isn't a top five, just a representative five, so Nova is here as the book that seared itself into my mind as a teenager reading classic sf - Asimov, Heinlein, Dick, Ellison, Sladek and so on. When I think space opera, I think Nova. I think of a spaceship diving into the heart of an exploding star to collect Illyrion. Of course, tomorrow I'll curse my foolishness for not picking Bester's The Stars My Destination, but for now... Nova has Mouse with his sensory syrinx.
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
I don't really think I have to explain this. Possibly my favourite book in the canon of 20th century literature because it's central conceit is just... the 20th century wrapped up in a nutshell. From the dead centre (more or less) of a century of warfare, Heller encapsulates the absurdity of it all in a perfect conceit, one which has passed into common idiom for very good reason. The blackest of black comedy, tragic, horrific even, and yet hilarious. A non-linear narrative but one that's utterly "accessible". To me, it's sort of a benchmark of how the dichotomy between populism and elitism is completely bogus. Profundity does not mean ponderous. Entertaining does not mean shallow.
Finnegan's Wake, James Joyce
Of course, sometimes "accessible" just isn't part of the picture. This is about as far from an easy read as I've ever seen, but it's kind of gobsmacking for the awesome ambition. To turn the law of compositionality completely on its head. I mean, where it's a founding principle of linguistics that the meaning of the whole is a sum of the meanings of the parts, Joyce seems to me to be inverting that, trying to create a book where you start with the whole, the conceptual frame and work your way down, your way in, making sense of the parts from their context. I can't think of any literary project that matches that sheer audacity.
Eclogues, Guy Davenport
More modernism, but in the short story form, and as tight and balanced as Finnegans Wake is wild and chaotic. This collection contains possibly my favourite short story of all time, "Idyll", which starts off in ancient Greece with a contest of insults between a shepherd and goatherd and segues in a seamless transition over a few lines of dialogue to the American Civil War. Other stories have equally strange structures - they're sort of pataphysical collages - but somehow Davenport imbues it all with a sense of order, utopian tranquility. Staggeringly erudite and breathtakingly elegant, as sensual as they are intellectual, Davenport's stories are just a joy to read.
Read More of Suite101's Conversation With Hal Duncan HERE
Lynne Jamneck - Lynne Jamneck lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Short listed for the Sir Julius Vogel and Lambda Awards, she has published short fiction in ...
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