Top Ten Tuesday

 Today's meme is ten favorite books more than ten years old.

I'm upping it to ten favorite authors.

Barry Sadler, his Casca: The Eternal Mercenary series. Taken over by Tony Roberts is now 56 books and counting.

Isaac Asimov, Science Fiction, History, Religion, hard science like the book pictured. He did it all with knowledge, humor, and style.

You think the pioneers of science fiction were Victor Hugo and Jules Verne, don't forget Andre Norton. She invented the galactic empire. She invented the star gate.

 A man who changed the way war was fought between WWI and WWII, A British captain and wrote the book Strategy. A treatise on historical battles using the indirect approach. The French and English dismissed it, the Germans used it to destroy them at the beginning of the war. The United States used it learning from our allies past mistakes. Island hopping in the Pacific is a prime example of the indirect approach.

One of the twentieth centuries greatest theologian, murdered by the Nazi's for helping Jews and others escape to Switzerland. The shame is that he was only beginning on his philosophy and cut short. He lived his beliefs and died by them.

Known for her book the Thorn Birds and subsequent mini-series, this was her life work. Starting with the rise of Marius through to the rise of Octavian a hundred-year stretch encompassing the life of Julius Caesar. I've read it through at least three times, when writing my books Optimus and Stephanus all of the social dynamics of Rome came from these books. History Channel should make a soap opera based on them there is enough fodder here for at least ten or more years in that format.

Mary Stewart wrote many different books, but her Arthurian books based on the life of Merlin, not Arthur was ground-breaking at the time.

Hank Bruce is a great friend and has a wonderful wit. Most of his writing is horticulture and gardening, but he branches out on other things. He works with those around the world on planting the Moringa tree to help end world hunger. He has a children's book explaining the merits of this miracle tree.

He is the only one who has read all of my books and written a review on Amazon.

Irene Blea is another friend and member of Writers2writers. She started as a professor and wrote the still available books on Chicana studies. She has a trilogy on the life of her aunt who was sold in the early 1900's as a wife to an old man at age 13. It's hard to image Daughters as being past ten years. It's still an open wound in Albuquerque where 7 women and an unborn child were found murdered and buried on the West Mesa.

It takes the life of a woman whose daughter is missing and fears as the bodies are being dug up that one of them might be hers.

I am a Tony Roberts junky. I can't get enough. As mentioned earlier he now has 26 Casca books. This is the Dark Blade series now with seven books and counting. A half-dark elf and human growing up reviled and shunned, when her mother dies, she discovers she's a princess of the dark elves and her father has left her a quest to rebuild his following and take over the throne of the dark elves.

He has a Kastania series on the rebirth of an empire before it is destroyed by the greedy nobility 

And a series on a rock band with a woman lead named Siren.

Why none of Anne McCaffrey's dragon books haven't been made into movies or TV series is mind boggling. I want a fire lizard as a pet.

Bonus, Harlan Ellison. The writer who has influenced me more than any other. An absolute horrible person, but a great writer.

He was a screen writer who wrote The City on the Edge of Forever for the original Star Trek series. 

Honorable mentions: Zane Grey, James A. Michener, William Manchester, Thomas B. Costain, James Clavell, Tom Clancy, Joseph Badal, Anne Rice and many more.

I'm an old man that has always had a voracious appetite for reading.