I know, right? It looks like there’s a lot of empty space,
but that really could not be further from the truth. You see, this is the
bookshelf of a parent with young children, hence the thick board-books at the
bottom that after the thousandth time we’ve given up on tidying properly, while
the top three shelves are home to things expensive, fragile or potentially
dangerous. Between those though this shelf is home to our almost-complete
collection of Terry Pratchett novels, assorted historical fiction belonging to
my wife and a great deal of horror, assorted fantasy and autobiographical
gangster tales by the likes of Chopper Read, along with cook books and music
related stuff on the bottom. Please don’t be alarmed by the juxtaposition of
the gangster novels, cooks books and that thick tome on the bottom entitled
“knots and ropework” if you can see it in the picture. They are all mine, but
their presence is entirely unrelated. Honestly.
Aside from Pratchett there isn’t much in the way of a
grouping by a particular author here, as this is less than half of our book
collection with many more still being in storage owing to the need to find room
for the children. I attempted to argue there was plenty of room in the garden,
but apparently children are an indoor breed. Go figure.
In essence though, this is virtually all genre fiction. I
simply don’t have much of an interest in literary fiction and while some might
scoff at that, there are simply so many books out there I want to read that I
don’t feel I’m missing out by ignoring the next “modern classic” or anything
from the Booker Prize nominations list. Each to their own of course, but
personally I’ll take Orcs, vampires and all manner of escapist fantasy any day
of the week.
Have to give a special mention here to Nigel, the Hoardless
Dragon. Bless him. A present from my wife and very much the life and soul of
our bookshelf, reminding us that when people make creatures who breath fire out
of flammable materials, there’s really no point in taking life too seriously.
And this one? This is where all of the military science
fiction is kept, which is a great love of mine. Almost everything here is set
within Games Workshop’s intellectual property setting and it has been a vast
source of inspiration and drive for me over the last few years, eventually
culminating in my decision to take this writing lark seriously and get some
words published. Now military stuff might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but
when you write anything with combat in it it’s useful to see how many ways you
can actually describe one person hitting/kicking/shooting/stabbing/blowing up
another. Aside from the prose there are also several role-playing rulebooks,
which really are a fascinating source of information for any writer and I’d
urge you to take a look for one good reason: character profiles. Of course
these are weighted towards combat stuff in some cases, but as a template for
creating a dense, nuanced character with their own world, culture, mind,
abilities and attributes, they are essentially an idiot’s guide to character
creation.
Not much more to go on about than that, so I hope you’ve
enjoyed my showcase. It was a lot of fun writing it!
Alecmcquay.wordpress.com is my blog, I’m @vampiricchicken on Twitter and easily found on FaceBook thanks to a name that has largely died out in the British isles.
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