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I can evade questions without help; what I need is answers.



              ///reading answers for Christina at the Zaibatsu///


>What is the first book you remember loving?

Probably 'A Wrinkle in Time' by Madeleine L'Engle, in the third
grade - at least that's the first one I remember.  (The first thing 
I remember, after all of the things I've forgotten, if you will.)

> Who are your favourite protagonists?

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser certainly rank high on the list. 
Steward from 'Voice of the Whirlwind' as well, and Molly from
Gibson's 'Neuromancer' (at my last re-reading I was struck by how
tolerant and caring she is toward Case despite all of her hard
edges).  Shevek from 'The Dispossessed' and Estraven from 'The Left
Hand of Darkness' surely as well.

> What, so far, is the best book you've read this year?

Certainly 'The Handmaid's Tale', which lives up to its rather
harrowing reputation - a disturbing story done very well and
probably something more people should read.  I had already seen
the first season of the TV series adaptation before I read it and
even knowing some of the twists and backstory in advance did
nothing to soften its punches.  Gentle like a Diane Arbus photo.

I am reading Bruce Sterling's 'Schismatrix' now and really enjoying
it as well.  I'm going to have to go back and pick up some of his
other works.

> Can you list three to five of your favourite authors? Why are they
your favourite?

Ernest Hemingway - for the sheer intensity of his love of his craft
  and his willingness to use every little bit of his life to inform
  his writing.  I really discovered him shortly after I graduated
  from college, copies of his works bought used because I was broke
  and needed something to help maintain my sanity, and fell pretty
  much instantly in love.  His absolute faith in his ability to
  leave so much detail out and still have the reader intuit and
  know it anyway and the truths behind it all was and is
  enthralling - trusting in the reader to bring their own truth to
  the story.  That is what all of the greatest artists are able to
  do.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - because he made sure that so many of the
  horrific stories of the Soviet GULAG made it out into the wider
  light of day, continued to stand up to the authorities and write
  /after/ he was released from the camps, and wrote it all so well
  and with so much optimism for humanity learning from it and doing
  better.  I find myself quoting him far too often in online
  discussions - this does not say good things about how we're doing
  on learning from the past.

William Gibson - his world-building is amazing and he does such a
  fantastic job of letting you discover them through peeks and
  hints without spelling it all out in exposition.  In worlds with
  so much technical jargon and so many secretive subcultures an
  author often spends a lot of time describing and explaining
  things, not Gibson.  He gives you just enough to figure things
  out yourself from context and character dialog while continuing
  to move the story along - often with multiple plotlines involving
  different groups of 'main' characters.

Ursula K. LeGuin - for the creation of The Handdarata and all of
  the explanations of the religions in 'The Left Hand of Darkness'
  alone LeGuin would be one of my favorite authors.  Her ability to
  ask questions about human society that make you consider our
  nature while telling compelling stories is unparalleled in my
  experience.

Philip K. Dick - if you want an author to conjure up some truly
  strange worlds and question the very nature of reality and human
  experience, well Phil is your guy.  Some of his stories have
  their plot holes and faults, written at a breakneck pace on
  amphetamines to make a living selling to pulp publishers.
  Aliens, time travel, vast government conspiracies, people owning
  outrageously expensive pets in a post-apocalyptic world to prove
  their empathy, strange religions, alternate realities galore -
  all of that and plenty of quirks and strangeness as well.  Dick
  wrote in the SF genre because it was the only one at the time
  that could handle all of the weird ideas he had crashing around
  inside his head.
  
  From "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days
  Later"[0]:
  "It was always my hope, in writing novels and stories which asked
  the question 'What is reality?', to someday get an answer." 

  Philip K. Dick - Agent of Chaos
  
  Thomas Disch's 'The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of' talks a bit
  about Dick and the importance of his writing to SF at several
  points and is a great read.  (And if you haven't read 'Camp
  Concentration' by Disch you're missing out - go get a copy and
  sit down, seriously.)

> What is your favourite film adaptation of a book?

'No Country For Old Men' did a very good job of adapting the
  book and capturing the atmosphere, the characters, and the
  dialog that make it such a great book.  The rotoscoped film of 'A
  Scanner Darkly' did a good job of capturing the tone and madness,
  of the novel and was very faithful to the original.

> What books have you read the most times?

'The Dispossessed' and 'The Left Hand of Darkness' by Ursula K.
  LeGuin - I tend to re-read one of these two when life is
  particularly difficult  and I need a break from stress.  I
  re-read 'The Dispossessed' this year, for example.

William Gibson's 'Neuromancer' - it just holds up so well to
  re-reading because there are so many layers to it.  'Count Zero'
  and 'Mona Lisa Overdrive' as well, for the same reason.

Fritz Leiber's entire Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series - when I
  really just need to get away from the real world for a bit
  these always do the trick, equal parts humorous and gritty.
  Their world of Nehwon and the city of Lankhmar hold all sorts
  of strangeness and the pair get into plenty of trouble both
  mundane and supernatural.  They are just a whole lot of fun.

'Voice of the Whirlwind' and 'Hardwired' - Walter Jon Williams -
  his ability to create a gritty, amoral, future world full of
  plots and changes going on in the background.

> What authors do you think more people should read?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - and not just because people need the
  cautionary tales, either
  
Philip K. Dick - because he opened up so many possibilities and
  pushed the medium pretty far in crazy directions that a lot of
  other writers have benefitted from

Ernest Hemingway - because the world should listen more to what he
  had to say about war.


[0]: http://yin.arts.uci.edu/%7Estudio/readings/dick/index.html


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