A Look Back at the Best Books You’ve Never Heard Of

During the month of May we’ve had a number of writers weigh in on their favorite unheralded books. I think we’ve all learned a lot, haven’t we? I know I have. My own posts aside, I count one, just one single book that I had heard of (heard of, not read) prior to reading the posts for this month. Let’s take a look back in bullet-point form so that you can all make sure to update your reading lists:

Into that Forest by Louis Nowra

Birth of the Firebringer by Meredith Ann Pierce

The Space Ship Under the Apple Tree by Louis Slobodkin

The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett

Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden

The Pleasure Master by Nina Bangs

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

Waylander by David Gemmell

The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham

Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright

To Reign in Hell by Steven Brust

The Macdonald Hall Series by Gordon Korman

Four Lords of the Diamond by Jack L. Chalker

The Last of the Renshai by Mickey Zucker Reichert

They Do Things Differently There by Jan Mark

S by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst

The Acts of Caine by Matthew Woodring Stover

Lion’s Blood and Zulu Heart by Steven Barnes

The Silver Crown by Robert C. O’Brien

Scriber by Ben Dobson

I’m sure many of you have reading lists that are already cluttered so, yeah, sorry about that. Next month Clancy will herd the Fictorians into the summer months with tips on how to stay on task and keep our goals in sight as warm weather and vacations loom. A big thanks to all the Fictorians who made May a success, a HUGE thanks to the many guest bloggers who took time out of their busy schedules to help contribute and as always, our heartiest thanks to the readers of our humble little writing blog.

Scriber, by Ben Dobson

A guest post by Moses Siregar III.

scriber-194x300Hi, my name is Moses Siregar III, author of THE BLACK GOD’S WAR. I’m an indie author, and I have a confession to make. Lots of books by indie authors are … pretty bad. I know you’re shocked, so I’ll give you a moment to collect yourself, to put the shattered pieces of your former paradigm back into a working perspective. Yes, it’s true. Most indie books … well, they often suck. But not all of them.

And definitely not Scriber by Ben S. Dobson. This one is actually one of my favorite fantasy novels of all time. You can usually find the ebook available for a great price, which is great because I think it’s as good as just about any new fantasy novel I’ve come across in the last five years or so. It’s a great read.

Told in first person, Scriber’s narrator is, on the surface, a difficult character. Dennon Lark is incredibly flawed. We might even call him a self-hating wimp. But he works. Brilliantly. His first person narrative doesn’t feel artificial because he’s a historian, and because Dennon is somehow easy to root for.

Scriber also features a band of female soldiers. The leader of the company of female soldiers is an inspiring figure and a powerful warrior named Bryndine. She’s a wonderfully noble character, and (fun fact) after reading Scriber I started playing a female paladin in a D&D campaign. I really had to fight the urge to name my character Bryndine.

What have I learned from Scriber? The problem is that I enjoyed the book so thoroughly on my first read through it that my critical mind practically turned off. I knew as I read it that I would need to read the book again someday to attempt to unlock its secrets. How did Ben S. Dobson write such a compelling, enjoyable (stand-alone) first person novel with such an incredibly flawed major character? Well, I wish I knew. Someday I need to figure that out. In the meantime, you can read Scriber for yourself. I think you’ll really enjoy it.

 

Guest Writer Bio: MosesAthens
Moses Siregar III is the author of THE BLACK GOD’S WAR and the upcoming Splendor and Ruin trilogy. Book #1, THE NINTH WIND is scheduled for release on July 27th, 2014. He’s a co-host of two popular podcasts, Adventures in Scifi Publishing and Hide and Create. Find him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MosesSiregar3 or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MosesSiregar.

The Silver Crown, by Robert C. O’Brien

A guest post by E.C. Myers.

440496She had known all along that she was a queen, and now the crown proved it. It was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes; it lay beside her on the pillow, shinier than silver, glowing softly, with twinkling blue stones set all around. And although it looked hard and solid, when she touched it she discovered that the silvery metal was actually a finely spun fabric, strong but soft as silk, so that if she wanted to, she could fold the whole crown in the palm of her hand and tuck it in her pocket.

I’d bet that most people have heard of or seen the classic animated film The Secret of NIMH. Yes, the one about the rats. Maybe you’ve even read the Newbery Medal–winning book on which it was based, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien. But did you know that O’Brien wrote three other equally amazing books? Any one of them could qualify for “best book you’ve never heard of” (although his last one, Z for Zacharia, is being made into a film), but I want to highlight my favorite of his, The Silver Crown.

The Silver Crown was O’Brien’s first book, published in 1968. The story is about a girl named Ellen Carroll who wakes up on her tenth birthday to discover a silver crown on her pillow. Imagining it magical, and herself a queen, she slips out with it for an early morning walk. When she returns, she finds her house has burned down, presumably with her parents, brother, and sister inside. That’s a pretty gripping opening, and rather dark for a children’s book. It gets even better, and darker and weirder from there: Someone is after Ellen and her crown, and she flees in search of her Aunt Sarah’s house in the mountains of Kentucky.

Eventually Ellen meets up with a boy named Otto, and they have some trippy adventures together. Over the course of the book, Ellen learns that a mad king with a crown identical to hers — only black instead of silver — is using (or being used by) a machine called Hieronymus to brainwash and control people, forcing them to do evil things. It all comes to a satisfactory end, though the most recent U.S. reprint features two final chapters: the original ending, which was published in the U.K., and a slightly expanded version that explains more about what happened in case you don’t like loose ends.

So why haven’t more people heard of The Silver Crown? For whatever reason, it was out of print for decades, though a new edition was finally published in 2001 by Aladdin. Despite it being difficult to find for most of my adult life, I’m just one of many people who never forgot it after reading it at a young age. In my case, I first encountered it in a sixth grade classroom library, and I knew pretty instantly that it was something special. It may have stood out because of its dark subject matter, which definitely stuck with me as I got older, or it may have been its mature themes and accurate representation of the complexity of good and evil. Or it could just be that Ellen is capable and sympathetic, and utterly unlike the hero of any books I had read before.

Now that the book is widely available again (I now own three copies, including a UK edition) I reread it periodically. It still holds up very well for me as an adult, and for more than just nostalgia, because plenty of other books I read as a kid are pretty awful now. *cough* Xanth *cough* Along with the works of William Sleator, particularly Singularity, which also lingered in my brain long after reading it, The Silver Crown has probably subconsciously informed my taste in fiction and my own writing more than any other influences. It may have been one of the first stories I read that straddled the line between fantasy and science fiction and deftly subverted readers’ expectations. O’Brien also didn’t flinch from dealing with death and murder in a children’s story, and featuring both evil adults and helpful adults in a book for kids.

If you look at my first young adult novel, I tried to do some of the same things — taking familiar tropes, blending fantasy and SF, playing off expectations, and letting things get dark and creepy. But perhaps the best impact O’Brien has had on me is the realization that even though he only wrote four novels, but he left a lasting impression on generations of readers.

I have long believed that if I could write a book that readers can’t forget, like The Silver Crown was for me and countless others, then I did all I set out to do, regardless of commercial success. Awards and film adaptations are nice and all, but the true mark of success for a writer is reaching appreciative readers…and perhaps twisting their minds a little so they’ll never be the same again.

Guest Writer Bio: TARDIS2
E.C. Myers was assembled in the U.S. from Korean and German parts and raised by a single mother and a public library in Yonkers, New York. He is the author of the Andre Norton Award–winning young adult novel Fair Coin and its sequel, Quantum Coin, as well as numerous short stories in anthologies and magazines. His next YA novel, The Silence of Six, will be out in November 2014 from Adaptive Books. You can find traces of him all over the internet, but especially at http://ecmyers.net and on Twitter: @ecmyers.

Lion’s Blood and Zulu Heart

A guest post by R.J. Terrell.

Steven BarnesAbout ten years ago I stumbled on a little gem by the name of Zulu Heart. Being a fantasy reader and seeing practically none of it featuring a lead character of African descent, I was instantly intrigued. As it turned out, the book is more alternate history than fantasy, but it was fortunate for me that the book was placed in the wrong section.

After reading the book, I discovered that it was the follow up to a book called Lion’s Blood, so I had to go back and read them in order.

Lion’s Blood and Zulu Heart are a ‘duology’ (though not officially named as such) that take place in 1850 AD in a world where power rested in the hands of Islamic Africa as opposed to Europe. Lion’s Blood begins the story of two boys, one the son of a wealthy African family, and the other, a Druidic Irish slave.

Because of his family’s controversial views of slaves being equals, the African boy named Kai and the Irish boy named Aiden become friends in a world of slavery, strife, prejudice and racism. It is in every way a story of friendship and loyalty that transcends the confines of the evil shade of humanity.

Set in America where war is threatened as Aztecs, Zulus, Moors, and Europeans clash, we see a different history that is in so many ways the same.

In Zulu Heart, Aiden has convinced his friend, Kai, to push for the freedom of his family. In the years since, enslaved Europeans have carved a life for themselves only to face the threat of re-enslavement while Kai is entangled in political intrigue between the lords of Egypt and Abyssinia.

These two books feature a lush and very real world with an alternate history that is very believable and very well done. I found it especially interesting how a certain real heroic historical figure appeared in Zulu Heart as the opposite of whom he was known to be. Steven Barnes did a class act job with these two books and they deserve far more notoriety than they’ve received.

I must recommend this excellent series. Steven Barnes tackled a tough and severely uncomfortable subject, and did a brilliant job of showing how love, friendship, loyalty, and honor can transcend and ultimately overcome the darkest aspects of humanity. The books are very well done, and once they get moving, are gripping, immersive and quite enjoyable.

Guest Writer Bio: R_Terrell_030513_0224_web
R. J. Terrell was instantly a lover of fantasy the day he opened R. A. Salvatore’s: The Crystal Shard. Years (and many devoured books) later he decided to put pen to paper for his first novel. After a bout with aching carpals, he decided to try the keyboard instead, and the words began to flow. When not writing, he enjoys reading, videogames, and long walks with his wife around Stanley Park in Vancouver BC.Connect with him at:

R.J. Terrell on facebook

R.J. Terrell on twitter

R.J. Terrell on Goodreads