Reader Recommendations
Jan. 27th, 2003 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsI've recently been deluged with a few well-meaning friends and acquaintances who seem exceedingly eager to get me to read The Liaden Universe series. The overwhelming consensus among these well-meaning folks is that "This series is a lot like The Journal Entries, so you should like it! You want to read more like this, don't you?"
Well, no, actually.
If I read stuff just like what I write, I'll never discover anything new and interesting to write about. I like my own stuff, have no doubt, but when it comes to reading other people's fiction my tastes don't run towards stuff "just like" the Journal Entries. I tend to get the Uncanny Effect when that happens, and the last thing I want is to feel like I'm cribbing off people who write "just like" I do. So I read radically different stuff: David Weber's Honor Harrington (and the originals, the Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O'Brian books) is high on my list right now, as is some heavy-duty philosophy texts (Deutsch's Fabric of Reality and Dennett's Consciousness Explained right now). Stuff that informs and educates me and my writing, rather than repeating what I already know.
I want to read voices different from my own optimistic workaday style, so I read Anne Rice for her lush, decaying voice, and Greg Egan for his violently rational approach. I read Bertrice Small for her outrageously sexy women and Susie Bright for her bright eroticism. At least I'm not Charlie "I'm not really a fan of the work of Charlie Stross" Stross.
This is not to say that I don't welcome reading recommendations. Just don't be too upset when I won't volunteer to read the recommendations. I'm not interested in working other people's stuff into the Journal Entries except where it amuses me. I'm not about to do doujinshi.
Well, no, actually.
If I read stuff just like what I write, I'll never discover anything new and interesting to write about. I like my own stuff, have no doubt, but when it comes to reading other people's fiction my tastes don't run towards stuff "just like" the Journal Entries. I tend to get the Uncanny Effect when that happens, and the last thing I want is to feel like I'm cribbing off people who write "just like" I do. So I read radically different stuff: David Weber's Honor Harrington (and the originals, the Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O'Brian books) is high on my list right now, as is some heavy-duty philosophy texts (Deutsch's Fabric of Reality and Dennett's Consciousness Explained right now). Stuff that informs and educates me and my writing, rather than repeating what I already know.
I want to read voices different from my own optimistic workaday style, so I read Anne Rice for her lush, decaying voice, and Greg Egan for his violently rational approach. I read Bertrice Small for her outrageously sexy women and Susie Bright for her bright eroticism. At least I'm not Charlie "I'm not really a fan of the work of Charlie Stross" Stross.
This is not to say that I don't welcome reading recommendations. Just don't be too upset when I won't volunteer to read the recommendations. I'm not interested in working other people's stuff into the Journal Entries except where it amuses me. I'm not about to do doujinshi.
