Recommended Reading

Fiction that has moved, inspired or intrigued me

Iain Banks
The Culture SF novels
The Crow Road, The Wasp Factory

Thomas Cook
Breakheart Hill
Mortal Memory

C.J. Cherryh
The Morgaine Series
The Foreigner Series

Pamela Dean
Tam Lin
Juniper, Gentian & Rosemary

Alan Garner
The Weirdstone of Brisangamen
Red Shift
The Owl Service
Strandloper
The Voice that Thunders (non-fiction)

Elizabeth George
The Thomas Lynley/Barbara Havers series

Kathleen Ann Goonan
Queen City Jazz,Mississippi Blues, Crescent City Rhapsody

Robert Goddard
In Pale Battalions
Past Caring

Graham Joyce
The Tooth Fairy

Ellen Kushner
Thomas the Rhymer
Swordspoint

Tanith Lee
The Birthgrave
Red as Blood

Jonathan Lethem
Gun with Occasional Music
Girl in Landscape
Amnesia Moon
As she Climbed across the Table
Motherless Brooklyn

Michael Marshall Smith
Only Forward
Spares

George R.R. Martin
Fevre Dream
The Song of Ice and Fire series

Patricia McKillip
The Riddlemaster of Hed series
Winter Rose
The Book of Atrix Wolfe
The Cygnet and the Firebird

Robin McKinley
The Blue Sword
The Hero and the Crown
Deerskin
Beauty

Christopher Moore
Practical Demonkeeping
Bloodsucking Fiends
Coyote Blue
The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine
A Dark-Adapted Eye
The House of Stairs

Geoff Ryman
Was
253
Air

Dorothy Sayers
Gaudy Night

Sean Stewart
Nobody's Son
Resurrection Man
The Night Watch
Mockingbird
Galveston

Michelle West
Hunter�s Oath, Hunter�s Death
The Sun Sword series: The Broken Crown, The Uncrowned King, The Shining Court, Sea of Sorrows

Diane Wynne Jones
Howl�s Moving Castle
Fire and Hemlock

Non-Fiction that has done the same

Shot in the Heart
Mikal Gilmore

Stunningly written, heartbreaking true story of family, history and violence. Mikal Gilmore, best known for his rock journalism in Rolling Stone, grapples with the legacy of his family and the forces that seem to lead inexorably to the execution of his brother, Gary. One of my �desert island� books.

Idols of Perversity
Bram Djisktra

A study of the image of women in art at the end of the 1800s. The inspiration for the paintings in �A Terrible Beauty�

Bad Land
Jonathan Raban

The settlement of Montana and the death of the American Dream. Any of this author's books are highly recommended.

Pink Samurai
Nicholas Bornoff

The history of sex in Japan, which was very useful in writing �Blood and Chrysanthemums�.Much more fun that the history of the wars in the 1300s, I�ll tell you!

The Killer Angels
Michael Shaara

Besides having one of the all-time great titles, this is a brilliant, moving book about the battle of Gettysburg. It�s a book in which there are heroes but no villains, the future of war clashes with the past, and both sides are fallible, admirable, and human.My experience of it was somewhat enhanced by the fact that, as a Canadian, I couldn�t actually remember who won the battle.

Vampire Novels & Stories

I often get asked for my favorite vampire novels/stories so here they are, in no particular order,:

The Shiny Narrow Grin, Jane Gaskell

The St. Germain Series, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Black Ambrosia, Elizabeth Engstrom

�The Girl with the Hungry Eyes�, Fritz Leiber

The Stress of Her Regard, Tim Powers

Fevre Dream, George R.R. Martin

Bloodsucking Fiends, Christopher Moore

Dracula, Bram Stoker

Salem�s Lot, Stephen King