Guest Blogger Mark Charan Newton with Some Last Recommended Non-/Genre Reading
The novel has already received its fair share of good reviews in the UK, and on this side of the Atlantic Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review, writing, "Newton opens a complex epic fantasy series with this impressive debut. The ancient fortress city of Villjamur is filled with human and nonhuman inhabitants, many of them refugees seeking shelter from a predicted decades-long ice age...Newton handles his multilayered world and diverse cast of characters with the assurance of an experienced author and balances his fantasy tropes with elements of horror and political commentary."
Mark's been kind enough to guest blog this week. Below find his third and final entry. (Click here for Newton on the transition from bookseller to book writer and here for Newton on mysteries and fantasy.)
Mark Charan Newton was born in 1981, and has a degree in Environmental Science. He has worked in bookselling, in editorial roles for pulp horror and medial tie-in fiction, and then original science fiction and fantasy, helping set up the Solaris imprint. His first novel is Nights of Villjamur, published by Ballantine (Random House). He now lives and works in Nottingham, England.
Dear Mainstream Readers, Dear Genre Readers...
by Mark Charan Newton
We're not too different, you and I. We all like quality literature, we all like a good book. There's no need for us to shun each other's territory, right? There is no need for snobbery and reverse snobbery alike.
Consider my offer, with all the experience I've gleaned as a former bookseller, editor and now writer. Here are ten books: six mainstream titles that a science fiction and fantasy fan should read; and six science fiction and fantasy titles that a mainstream fan should read. It's a starting point, but not a list based on pure simplicity or indeed my absolute favourite reads.
SFF books every mainstream fan should read.
Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock. This is a meta-fantasy, a fantasy about fantasy. Imagination begins in Holdstock's Ryhope Wood, where echos of Celtic beings come alive once again, brought to reality by the minds of those who pass through this ancient English forest. It's beautiful, sensual, the essential rural fantasy - and one of my favourite novels of all time.
The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin - I can hear so many SFF readers saying "you chose THAT Le Guin novel?" Yeah, I did. It's one of her novels that has received considerably attention from the literary world, and quite right too. It is a hugely political novel from an anarchist writer, and one without sentiment or propaganda. The Dispossessed contrasts cultural exchanges between a deeply poor communist society and that of a exploitative capitalist world. It's unashamedly about the politics and how the theory effects us, and it's a wonderful example of just how powerful science fiction can be in examining such issues.
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. I didn't love this novel at first, but it's certainly one that has charmed me on later reads. In this tale, the citizens of a bourgeois town have their world turned upside down by the quiet and subtle invasion of folk from the Land of the Faerie, with their conspiracy to spread their drug-like Faerie Fruit. I think it's a wonderfully accessible and quaint tale, with a considerably influence on other writers in the genre.
The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick. Fantasy fiction is often dismissed as simple escapism, but here is a novel that refuses to play by such easy rules. From the off, it refuses to use tropes in the accepted manner, mashing together traditional races - elves, dwarves - with more punky contemporary aesthetics. The story follows a young girl, Jane, from her life in an industrial complex that manufactures dragons, through to her escape and problematic existence on the outside. At every turn, this is a novel that refuses to stay charming.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant recipient was one of the genre's greatest assets. Parable of the Sower is set in a dystopian America – an aesthetic that Hollywood can't get enough of these days. Here, a young woman suffers from a syndrome where she feels the pain of others as if her own. When her gated community is destroyed, she sets off on a journey where she seeks to build a community of her own. This is simple and powerful science fiction.
Light by M John Harrison. This is one of the most divisive genre books I've known – that's a good thing, because it shows something truly unique is happening. Books are only as good as the debate they generate. Here is Harrison's anti-genre science fiction novel, a pastiche, a mockery, a downright fun trip into a disturbing and gruesome future built firmly on foundations of quantum physics. It's a mind-blower of a book, with a sublime, hyper-noir style, and with all the thematic and literary chops necessary for the most discerning reader.
Mainstream books a SFF fan should read.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. Chabon is the acceptable face of geekdom, in mainstream circles. With roots firmly in comic book lore, this is a throughly entertaining narrative charting the lives to two charming young boys from being comic book geeks, through to rising to the top of their industry as comic book writers. It's a meditation on what it means to escape – genre fans should read it for that reason alone.
Q, by Luther Blissett. Historical novels are not too distant from many secondary world fantasies. In any fiction, a world has to be brought alive, and in historical fiction, the worlds may seem as extraordinary as a fantastical one, and this is an amazing exploration of a spectacular period in history. Q is a radical novel, written by four anonymous Italian radicals (under the moniker of a comically not-so-radical soccer player). With a left-leaning perspective on revolutions across a 15th Century Europe, it charts the effect of a mysterious character of the church and how he manages to interfere with the various uprisings.
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. Sure, it's fantasy - part of the reason I included this was to highlight that fantasy is even more accessible to mainstream readers when it's packaged as a mainstream novel. Indian author Salman Rushdie gives us a dense account his native India's independence from British colonialism through the eyes of Saleem Sinai, born at the moment of Independence and who, like many other children born at this moment, possesses strange powers. It's all allegory, kids - and of the very best kind, one that explores India's events before and after it's partition.
Libra by Don DeLillo. DeLillo is an incredibly powerful writer, and one of the finest sentence makers I've ever read. I've included this - one of his more accessible novels - because it contains a kind of exploration, a thorough testing of ideas and running with them, which seems so imbedded within science fiction. He seems to take a crowbar to life, open the world and look at it from an entirely new perspective. Here, we see DeLillo exploring the conspiracies and histories surrounding the Kennedy assassination, following the life of a young Lee Harvey Oswold through to the point of changing the world.
The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. Durrell's metaphysical novel of the 1950s is well-regarded as a masterpiece, though not talked about enough these days. His wartime Alexandria is as mystical and exotic and more well-realised than any secondary world I've read to date. But these books are also excellent examples of how to handle a series – minor characters from one book suddenly become the focal point in the next; and each perspective seems to undermine the preceding, so you can never really know any truths, merely draw your own experiences.
Stories by Katherine Mansfield (or indeed just about any of her short fiction). Mansfield is an incredible short story writer, but it's what goes on underneath her stories which I find fascinating. You're left with the feeling that something more sinister or eerie has gone on, because she forces you to look beyond the text. Her seemingly innocent stories are beautiful yet uncomfortable reading, and it's not often clear why. It reminds me of ghost stories without any supernatural elements whatsoever.
jd103 on July 05, 2010 at 04:27 AM
I've had this author's book on the to read list since learning about it, and although I'm not crazy about the sff books he mentions that I've read, his comments on The Alexandria Quartet, one of my favorites, make me look forward to trying his novel even more.
Jesse Dylan Watson on July 05, 2010 at 11:14 AM
This is one of the best articles I've ever read in my life, and I'm so happy I saw it on Amazon Daily via my Kindle. I'm looking up each and every book I haven't heard of and revisiting the ones I have. This man is a genius (or at least has great taste), and I can't wait to read his books as well.
Thank you so much for these fantastic recommendations. Every single thing you on here is of great interest to me. Thank you for broadening my mind. There is nothing better than a book that both entertains and expands your consciousness.
Styx on July 07, 2010 at 12:43 AM
Great lists! Thank you.
If I may make a couple of added suggestions? For the SF Reader I'd include The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles; for the on-Sf reader I'd include 334 by Thomas M Disch (though sadly out of print I fear - so maybe Disch's Camp Concentration or the new edition of Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg)