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Family and Friends is my everyday journal. Captain's Log is where I pontificate on religion and politics.

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

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.


8 comments:

Lydia said...

Isaac Asimov was an amazing storyteller! Good picks all around.

P M Prescott said...

Thanks.

Terrie said...

I love this twist on the theme. I've always loved the Mary Stewart series - read Thorn Bird but not the rest of the series. I don't know Tony Roberts, but it sounds like he's a prolific author and I may have to try one of his - dark elves sound intriguing!
Terrie @ Bookshelf Journeys
https://www.bookshelfjourneys.com/post/ttt-bks-i-loved-10-yrs-ago

P M Prescott said...

Thanks for your comment, Terrie

Lark @ The Bookwyrm's Hoard said...

What a great twist on this week's topic! And I like your choice of authors.

I love Mary Stewart - both the Arthurian saga, which absolutely enthralled me when I first read it in 9th grade, and her romantic suspense novels. She was such a good writer, no matter what the subject!

I also love McCaffrey; I've been a Pern fan since my teens, and enjoy some of her other series as well, particularly the Talents books. And if I can't be a Dragonrider (or a Harper), I absolutely want my own fire-lizard!

I read a lot of Andre Norton and some Isaac Asimov in my youth. I loved Norton; she had a huge influence on me and my reading tastes throughout my teens, though now I find her linguistic style a little overblown in some of the books. But I think I may go back and reread some of my favorites one of these years.

I was impressed with some of Asimov's ideas—the Foundation series and the short story "Nightfall" in particular—and I enjoyed the humor found in some of his books. He's definitely one of the classic SF writers. The drawback for me was his female characters, and the relative lack of them. When they appear, they often lack depth and/or are stereotypes (though there are one or two notable exceptions.) As a young woman, that made me bristle, and still does. Heinlein's books appealed to me more; though he wasn't exactly devoid of sexism, his characters were more varied, and his books hung as much on the characters as on the ideas and plot.

I haven't read your other authors, though I'm familiar with “City on the Edge of Forever” (which Ellison hated in its final form, and raged against for years. Personally, I think it's one of the best episodes in the original series.)

Thank you for the love for some of my favorite authors, and for reminding me of others I haven't reread in decades!

P M Prescott said...

Thank you for your comments, yes, they gutted his script, but Shatner always did that so he would have most of the lines and screen time. He was also upset that the time portal was supposed to have runes on it. Instead, they painted ruins in the background. Seems they didn't know what a rune was.

iloveheartlandX said...

I've not read any of these authors' books but I'm glad you enjoyed them!
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2022/08/16/top-ten-tuesday-381/

P M Prescott said...

Thanks for dropping by, X