By Jerry Ordway – When COMBO <\/i>asked me to do one of these \u201cRecommended Reading\u201d columns, I started to think back to all of the books I read as a kid which had some impact on me. The list turned out to be somewhat short, as I spent most of my childhood playing sports with my brother Joel and our friends. The time left over was filled by learning to draw, and reading (mostly) Marvel comics. Books were something you read in school, after all. Oh, sure, on occasion, I\u2019d find myself enjoying a book-report book, like The Adventures of Lewis and Clark <\/i>[Is Clark cheating on Lois already?\u2014ed.], but I didn\u2019t use my library card often.<\/p>\n
When I was 12, I read a collection of H.G. Wells stories, including The War of the Worlds<\/i> and The Time Machine<\/i>. I followed that with an Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes collection. Both of those books kept me en\u00adthralled, but neither put me off of reading comics or drawing. In high school, I read and enjoyed Death Be Not Proud<\/i>, which chronicled the author\u2019s teenage son\u2019s battle with a life-threatening disease, and it moved me tremendously. And to think, I picked it off the shelf solely because Roy Thomas used the title for an issue of The Avengers <\/i>he wrote! [And Jerry eventually worked with Roy on DC\u2019s All-Star Squad\u00adron<\/i>! Cool, huh?\u2014ed.]<\/p>\n
One of my favorite authors is Stephen King, and I list \u2019Salem\u2019s Lot <\/i>and The Dead Zone <\/i>as personal faves. I started reading King on a recommendation from Don and Maggie Thompson, through their column in The Buyer\u2019s Guide<\/i>. This was back in 1978 or so, when I had an hour-long commute to my commercial art job, so I had the time to read. I devoured everything King put out after that, only faltering with his last few years worth of material, due to burn-out, I guess. His latest, the serialized The Green Mile<\/i>, rekindled my interest; it\u2019s a great read. Each part is around 100 pages long, and the effect is like a cliffhanger serial\u2014you can\u2019t wait to read the next one!<\/p>\n
Recently, I\u2019ve been reading some police thrillers and medical thrillers, and I\u2019ve found two authors who im\u00adpress me, I guess because both are experts in their fields.<\/p>\n
Robert Daley has written many books and is a former cop, so his work gives me a sense of what it\u2019s really like to be in law enforcement. Tainted Evidence <\/i>and Wall of Brass <\/i>are two that I\u2019ve enjoyed, and I look forward to reading more.<\/p>\n
Michael Palmer writes thrillers involving doctors, nurses, and conspiracies. The Sisterhood<\/i>, Silent Treat\u00adment<\/i>, and Extreme Measures <\/i>all move at breakneck pace, and provide plot twists galore. Again, because Palmer is in medicine, I come away feeling like I learned a bit about the workings of the medical community, which in turn I can use in my own writing.<\/p>\n
Getting back to fantasy, I enjoyed Clive Barker\u2019s Dam\u00adnation Game <\/i>and Weave\u00adworld<\/i>. Barker\u2019s work is very imaginative, and Weaveworld<\/i>, especially, had me visualizing special effects so much my head hurt. Mark Frost, co-creator of the weird Twin Peaks <\/i>TV series surprised me with his two novels to date: The List of Seven <\/i>and The Six Mes\u00adsiahs<\/i>. Both feature A. Conan Doyle in fictional \u201cwhat ifs,\u201d imagining that Sherlock Holmes\u2019 creation and adventures were in\u00adspired by incidents in the young author\u2019s life. These were an awful lot of fun to read, though you should read List <\/i>first.<\/p>\n
Reading is most enjoyable for me because I can cast actors for these stories in my head, and pace them simply by putting them down and then picking them up to read again. It\u2019s interactive, without 32-bit cartridges or letterboxing. You enter into a partnership with the author when you commit to page one, and by the end you know if you\u2019ll ever do business with him or her again.<\/p>\n
Make time to read. Turn off the TV, radio, stereo, whatever, and pick up a book\u2014maybe even one I\u2019ve recom\u00admended here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Jerry Ordway – When COMBO asked me to do one of these \u201cRecommended Reading\u201d columns, I started to think back to all of the books I read as a kid which had some impact on me. The list turned out to be somewhat short, as I spent most of my childhood playing sports with my brother Joel and our friends. The time left over was filled by learning to draw, and reading (mostly) Marvel comics. Books were something you read in school, after all. Oh, sure, on occasion, I\u2019d find myself enjoying a book-report book, like The Adventures of Lewis and Clark [Is Clark cheating on Lois already?\u2014ed.], but I didn\u2019t use my library card often. When I was 12, I read a collection of H.G. Wells stories, including The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. I followed that with an Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes collection. Both of those books kept me en\u00adthralled, but neither put me off of reading comics or drawing. In high school, I read and enjoyed Death Be Not Proud, which chronicled the author\u2019s teenage son\u2019s battle with a life-threatening disease, and it moved me tremendously. And to think, I picked it off the shelf solely because Roy Thomas used the title for an issue of The Avengers he wrote! [And Jerry eventually worked with Roy on DC\u2019s All-Star Squad\u00adron! Cool, huh?\u2014ed.] One of my favorite authors is Stephen King, and I list \u2019Salem\u2019s Lot and The Dead Zone as personal faves. I started reading King on a recommendation from Don and Maggie Thompson, through their column in The Buyer\u2019s Guide. This was back in 1978 or so, when I had an hour-long commute to my commercial art job, so I had the time to read. I devoured everything King put out after that, only faltering with his last few years worth of material, due to burn-out, I guess. His latest, the serialized The Green Mile, rekindled my interest; it\u2019s a great read. Each part is around 100 pages long, and the effect is like a cliffhanger serial\u2014you can\u2019t wait to read the next one! Recently, I\u2019ve been reading some police thrillers and medical thrillers, and I\u2019ve found two authors who im\u00adpress me, I guess because both are experts in their fields. Robert Daley has written many books and is a former cop, so his work gives me a sense of what it\u2019s really like to be in law enforcement. Tainted Evidence and Wall of Brass are two that I\u2019ve enjoyed, and I look forward to reading more. Michael Palmer writes thrillers involving doctors, nurses, and conspiracies. The Sisterhood, Silent Treat\u00adment, and Extreme Measures all move at breakneck pace, and provide plot twists galore. Again, because Palmer is in medicine, I come away feeling like I learned a bit about the workings of the medical community, which in turn I can use in my own writing. Getting back to fantasy, I enjoyed Clive Barker\u2019s Dam\u00adnation Game and Weave\u00adworld. Barker\u2019s work is very imaginative, and Weaveworld, especially, had me visualizing special effects so much my head hurt. Mark Frost, co-creator of the weird Twin Peaks TV series surprised me with his two novels to date: The List of Seven and The Six Mes\u00adsiahs. Both feature A. Conan Doyle in fictional \u201cwhat ifs,\u201d imagining that Sherlock Holmes\u2019 creation and adventures were in\u00adspired by incidents in the young author\u2019s life. These were an awful lot of fun to read, though you should read List first. Reading is most enjoyable for me because I can cast actors for these stories in my head, and pace them simply by putting them down and then picking them up to read again. It\u2019s interactive, without 32-bit cartridges or letterboxing. You enter into a partnership with the author when you commit to page one, and by the end you know if you\u2019ll ever do business with him or her again. Make time to read. Turn off the TV, radio, stereo, whatever, and pick up a book\u2014maybe even one I\u2019ve recom\u00admended here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20,21,19],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recommended-reading","tag-issue-26","tag-jerry-ordway","tag-march-1997"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eacottdesign.com\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}