A long and hallowed list from our man Dan
By Dan Brereton – Science-fiction writer Alan Dean Foster once wrote that he blamed comic books for what had become of him. He’s a prolific and masterful sci-fi writer whose novels and short stories captivated and entertained me as a teen. His testimonial to the powerful influence of comics in his life gave me solace when classmates and adults alike ridiculed my own childhood obsession with comic books. I read as many comics as I could get my hands on, though I confess I paid more attention to the artists than the writers back then. And although I was ga-ga for comics from age 8 on, I still read more books than comics.
I read all of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, plus a few peripheral fairy-tale books he wrote as well.
When I was in my teens, I read J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and fell in love with sword and sorcery. My garage still houses many of the paperbacks I enjoyed back then: Robert E. Howard’s Conan books; Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan, Pellucidar, and Mars books (and about any paperback with a Frazetta cover); Fritz Lieber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser books; and in my late teens and 20s, the inexhaustible master, Harlan Ellison.
The Brothers Hildebrandt created a Lord of the Rings-like epic called Urshurak, which they told almost completely in pictorial form and had a writer transcribe it into a pretty nifty tale of elves, amazons, goblins, and dwarves.
Roald Dahl incorporated a twisted, nasty sense of wit and irony with a gentleness and sensitivity I’ve never encountered in another writer. He would’ve written some great comics if he’d ever gone that way. (He wrote the screenplay for my favorite Bond film, You Only Live Twice.)
A novel that took up much of my reading time in high school was The Once and Future King, by T.H. White. This book, about the legend and life of King Arthur and the medieval satellites that surround Arthurian legend, was a seminal influence on me.
To this day I am still inspired and awed by the great writer and storyteller Ray Bradbury. I urge anyone who’s never read him to pick up The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine, or pretty much anything he’s written. The man can write a horror story to chill you and in the next story show you something fantastic and pure.
These days, and in the last nine years, I’ve been reading a lot of crime fiction. I like the pared-down, simple, and almost spartan texture of crime fiction. Crime fiction is perfect for a lover of dialogue laced with violence. I read some of the genre’s masters, such as Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon, Red Harvest) and Charles Willeford (Miami Blues).
In a contemporary vein, I enjoy the works of Carl Hiaasen (Stormy Weather, Tourist Season); he’s funny and writes a great yarn. Other great crime writers are Jon A. Jackson, Lawrence Block, and Walter Mosely.
I also recently finished Naked Came the Manatee, a “jam” novel with each chapter written by a different author. Authors include such names as Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard (another great crime writer), along with 11 others, all from Florida. It’s mystery/crime fiction and a great read; I’d love to see something like this done in comics.
Last, but certainly not least, one of my favorite writers in suspense/ crime drama: Stephen Hunter. I recommend Point Of Impact, Black Light, and Dirty White Boys. Howard Chaykin turned me on to Hunter’s great stuff, and Howard never steers me wrong.
Howard turned me on to James Ellroy (The Black Dahlia, American Tabloid) years ago, and I’ve since read everything Ellroy’s written, including his latest, an autobiographical odyssey called My Dark Places, about his search for the man who murdered his mother when he was only 10. Ellroy tears away at not only the evidence and facts surrounding his mother’s murder, but at his own soul in the process.
Last night I finished a highly acclaimed and award-winning book called Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson. It’s set on an island in Washington state in the ’50s and concerns the murder of a fisherman and the trial of a Japanese-American local accused of the crime. It’s a great read, and it also touches just slightly on another favorite subject of mine in film and reference reading: medieval feudal Japan. If you’ve never read the Lone Wolf and Cub comics reprinted from Japan, hunt them down. Frank Miller owes much to creators Goseke Gojima and Kazuo Koike. So do I, and so do a lot of Japanese manga readers.
I’m sure I’ve left out so many deserving novels and authors. I didn’t tell you how much I loved Moby-Dick or Ivanhoe or Dracula; F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.D. Salinger (every high schooler should read Catcher in the Rye), or Flannery O’Connor; Watership Down; David Good and Raymond Chandler; Alan Dean Foster’s Phlinx stories, about a psychic kid and his lethal best friend, a flying snake named Pip; Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, H.G. Wells—the list is long and hallowed.
I guess that’s why I love to read so much. There’s always something wonderful waiting on the shelf.
