This is just a quick post i thought I’d throw up to list a few of my favourite books and writers.  (So it may be badly written with crap grammar)

Joe Haldeman, The Forever War and Camouflage

Haldeman is a writer that I discovered simply by his book Peace and War.  This was an omnibus which had The Forever War, Forever Free and Forever Peace.  I was drawn to the book by the books name and the cover art which is a snowy, barren looking mountain range with an assault rifle’s muzzle buried in the ground and a astronauts helmet with a shattered clear faceplate rested atop of it.  It looks a little like an improvised grave marker.  After reading the synopsis on the back page I brought it and it has been one of the most influential books that I have ever read.

It would not be fair of me to write a brief review of this novel as I have not read it in such a long time and writing this is making me want to revisit it once more.  So I may write a post about it then.

Camouflage also blew my mind away.  Both books dealt with issues that I had never even thought about and as I write this I am determined to read both again as I think it will have an even greater effect on me and my writing now.

Another writer whose work has had an actual effect on my own writing and moved me as I’ve read his work is Scott Sigler.  I have got all of the books that he has published from Infected, including The Rookie and The Starter which are two books that he has self published.  This is not just some vanity project.  Both these books are the most stunningly well put together works that I have ever seen.  The Rookie is an amazing story line too.  I have not read The Starter yet.

Sigler’s book Infected though is the only book to ever make me flinch as I read it.  What Sigler puts the main character, Perry Dawsey, through is just pure hell.  It works incredibly well though.  Sigler gives you characters that I at times really do not like but I still want to see them survive.  the follow-up to Infected is Contagious, and this again gives Sigler’s readers what we expect of him, the unexpected.  As you have already guess I am no good at giving good descriptions about these books but the final pages of Contagious were written in such a way that I was notably moved and it left me with plenty to think  about.  His Most recent release has been Ancestor.  This again kept me turning pages.  What is unique about Sigler is that he gives all of his content away for free via his podcast, and yet his fans, Junkies as we are proudly known, still buy his books.

I will be buying more books by Joe Haldeman and I will continue to support Scott Sigler.  These two writers have influenced me both in my writing and me as a person.  Both no doubt have their critics but as long as their fans still get a buzz from their work then they are making people happy.