Herbie of High Heart Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 I was reading Sundiver by David Brin. He pays homage to Tolkien with a reference to Tom Bombadil in Chapter 22: "Impertubable as Bombadil . . . ." Cool. Has anyone else come across this before? Any examples of authors referencing/paying homage to others? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 What, you mean like GRRM paying homage to Robert Jordan, Tad Williams, Jack Vance, the Marx Brothers and obscure Marvel superheroes in ASoIaF? Or Stephen King paying homage to, erm, himself in Dark Tower? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herbie of High Heart Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 Good ones. I guess I was asking about direct mentions of other author's works or characters like Bombadil was mentioned in Sundiver. It seems like authors would like to play around like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinDonner Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 Dan Simmons pays homage to one of his other (unrelated) books in a shameless bit of wankery in Hard Case - his main character starts a fire to cause a distraction, and says something like "I read how to do this in another book, it was something about Hemingway chasing Nazis in the Caribbean..." ...yeah, that would've been The Crook Factory by, er, Dan Simmons. Cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lyanna Stark Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 Since I am now a sad commuter, it means I have a lot of time for reading. Finished "Lady Chatterley's Lover" which I actually rather liked, although it definitely lacked advanced sex scenes. A worthy read none the less. Continued with Bakker's "The Darkness that comes before" and relaly liked it, despite its general lack of sympathetic characters. the story is compelling and the writing style captivating. A bit heavy at first, but many novels with larger scope suffer from the same. Am now perusing "Anansi boys" by Gaiman. Oddly enough I like it better than "Neverwhere" so far and can't really understand why people thought it was sub-par compared to that one. I will have it done by Friday at the latest, when I'm considering continuing with China Mieville's "The Scar". Guess we'll see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pat5150 Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 Just finished Brian Ruckley's WINTERBIRTH, which has to be one of this year's finest debuts. Fans of GRRM and dark and gritty fantasy tales should enjoy this one. Not similar to GRRM in terms of story, but very similar in style and tone. Add this one to your Christmas present list! Check the blog for the full review. . . Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isis Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 I'd almost bet that Tolkien gets directly referenced more often than any other author, except possibly Shakespeare. Slogging through Kay's The Last Light of the Sun. The first 50 or 80 pages were hard work. I almost gave up. Now on page 150 and I'll get to them end if I have to speed-read through the tedious parts. This stuff just doesn't flow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nobodymN Posted December 6, 2006 Share Posted December 6, 2006 I started thumbing through Charles Saunder's Imaro with some high hopes as I haven't read good sword/sorcery styled Fantasy since....well god damn all the people that write outstanding sword/sorcery are all dead except Moorcock, and he doesn't dabble in that sub-genre anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bellis Posted December 7, 2006 Share Posted December 7, 2006 Ok, I finished Against the Day. I wrote a longer review in the thread I started about it. Basically, it's a terribly satisfying book, more plot-driven than any of his other works, truly epic in scope but with everything almost neatly wrapped up in the end. A good culmination of everything else he's every written about. But not a good place to start unless you already know and love Pynchon, since this book is huuuge. Very well-crafted, but because of that, almost less interesting than his earlier stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted December 7, 2006 Share Posted December 7, 2006 Just finished Brian Ruckley's WINTERBIRTH, which has to be one of this year's finest debuts. Fans of GRRM and dark and gritty fantasy tales should enjoy this one. Not similar to GRRM in terms of story, but very similar in style and tone. Add this one to your Christmas present list! Check the blog for the full review. . . Patrick Oh I added it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unJon Posted December 7, 2006 Share Posted December 7, 2006 I'd almost bet that Tolkien gets directly referenced more often than any other author, except possibly Shakespeare. The problem with Tolkien is that he is the most referenced in a very small genre all things considered. If we can count books with multiple authors then the Bible runs away with this title. If we expand outside of fiction, then Aristotle probably gets the nod. And if we get outside of English Lit, we should add the Koran and probably Confucius and Lao-Tzu. If we stick to English fiction references then after Shakespeare I would expect Homer is the most influential. Just did some internet searching and didn't find anything particularly interesting. Would be fun to know the answer to this question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nobodymN Posted December 7, 2006 Share Posted December 7, 2006 I dare say that Stephen King might be in the running for authors in the 20th century and may represent strongly all time. I thought Winterbirth was dreadful, and I say that agreeing with everything Calibandar (who enjoyed it) points out in his thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted December 7, 2006 Share Posted December 7, 2006 Carrying on with Altered Carbon. After an indifferent opening, it's starting to take off now. The bit where the hotel lobby deploys its built in automatic cannons and blows two criminals out the front of the building was totally unexpected, but entertaining. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stego Posted December 7, 2006 Share Posted December 7, 2006 But are you enjoying them at all, Stego? And I gotta ask, based on comments from you before, are you reading them in hardcover? I've only been able to find the first two in first edition hardbacks... At All? I bloody love them. I wove myself a grass crown the other day to wear while reading them. I'm calling my cat 'Piggle-Wiggle.' I meant daunting as to how much time they are taking up. Big books. OF COURSE, I am reading them in hardcover. I am no savage. In fact, I just ordered a signed copy of TFMIR from ABE Books. (For only 30 dollars, btw) I am hooked on these now, though only on the third. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Regina Posted December 7, 2006 Share Posted December 7, 2006 I'm calling my cat 'Piggle-Wiggle.' OMG, I love it! In fact, I just ordered a signed copy of TFMIR from ABE Books. (For only 30 dollars, btw) What a great deal! I was on cloud nine when I finally found a first edition hardcover of TFMIN for only $4. Sadly unsigned, of course. Then again, this was before I started caring about autographs and such. (I blame Stego entirely for my new found desire for signed books, btw. It all started at Boskone, after all.) ETA: BTW, Isis, I am a big fan of Kay, but I find LLOTS to be the hardest of his books to read. The style was so different, and the words just didn't flow for me as much as in his other books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ned Sand Posted December 7, 2006 Share Posted December 7, 2006 One of her best! You don't HAVE to have read Dragonflight for it to make sense, but come on! And how can you not have enjoyed Anne! GAH! Avoid the later stuff. The dragonriders jump the shark on the first page written after the end of The White Dragon. For a sweet, light read, choose Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums - aka the Harper Hall trilogy. It's set simultaneously with parts of Dragonquest and The White Dragon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. X Posted December 8, 2006 Share Posted December 8, 2006 I just finished Altered Carbon and absolutely loved it. Of course, I enjoy both sci-fi and detective novels, so a sci-fi detective novel suits me just fine. And it doesn't hurt that it's well written. I also read the first two collections of the Y: The Last Man graphic novels. Quality stuff. The first issue is outstanding -- one of the better first issues I have read. (Though to be perfectly honest, I haven't really read all that many first issues of series when compared with a lot of folks on this board.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calibandar Posted December 8, 2006 Share Posted December 8, 2006 Lyanna Am now perusing "Anansi boys" by Gaiman. Oddly enough I like it better than "Neverwhere" so far and can't really understand why people thought it was sub-par compared to that one. I wouldn't say Anansi is inferior to Neverwhere either, it's better. The only Gaiman effort it is inferior to is American Gods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinDonner Posted December 8, 2006 Share Posted December 8, 2006 I liked Anansi Boys better than American Gods - AG I found a bit flat. Great premise, but dull dull main character. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheHoundRules Posted December 8, 2006 Share Posted December 8, 2006 I started The Kite Runner this week. Very good so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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