Christopher Ruocchio’s epic SF novel Empire of Silence is published this week by Gollancz, and to mark the occasion, Ruocchio has looked back at some of the previous works that fed his passion for science fiction and fantasy…

Confession: I don’t read as much literature as I used to. Writing eats most of the time I once devoted to reading, and I find that no longer being in school has made me a more interested student – so that when I do read these days it’s mostly nonfiction. But of course, I have my favorites, and I have books that shaped me into the fan I am today. Moreover, I wouldn’t be a science fiction writer (or a fantasy writer, depending on who you ask) if I hadn’t read my fair share of SF/F books (though I should note the original Star Wars films – and indeed the prequels – deserve perhaps the lion’s share of the credit for my ending up an incurable storyteller).

1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (aka Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the UK)

I was born in the ‘90s, and so J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter were an inescapable juggernaut. I seem to remember my friend Erin gave me a copy when we were both 4 or 5 (this was right when it came out circa 1998), and my father read it to me. This was a little before it reached the ecstatic fan following it has today, of course, and so I remember being made fun of in school for talking about owls and wizards and the like. I suppose that makes me a Harry Potter hipster, but I come by it honestly. Prisoner of Azkaban and Half-Blood Prince were my favorites, and though I’ve become somewhat disenchanted with the franchise over the years (I just don’t like the Fantastic Beast films, Rowling’s depiction of America didn’t feel very… American, please don’t hate me), the books still hold a special place in my heart. The first book is particularly special, not because it’s the greatest, but because there is some indescribable magic in those first moments where Dumbledore, Hagrid, and McGonagall leave the infant Harry on the steps of Number 4. Harry taught me there’s more to all of us than we expect, maybe more than we hope, and certainly more than we fear.

2: Heir to the Empire

I loved Star Wars. It was one of the movies my parents would let me watch, and I watched it obsessively. My father had the LaserDisc editions (remember those? I remember those), and so I saw Han shoot first and the less terrible Jabba’s Palace scene and even the Yub-Nub song. But the films were never enough, even though I was young enough to enjoy the prequels in their time. Fortunately, there were books. I never went as deep as some fans (I was very much a movies-first kind of fan), but Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy was my sequel trilogy. Fond as I am or Rey and Kylo Ren, Zahn’s original Thrawn books were huge for me, and Thrawn himself posed a different sort of threat to Luke, Han, and Leia than the Emperor and Darth Vader. He was cold, implacable, and refined. I have always had a fondness for villains, and Timothy Zahn gave us one of the franchise’s best. Heir to the Empire was the first book I ever bought (and with my own money, no less), and so it’s the book that really made me actively involved in my own reading choices. I’ve since had the pleasure of working with Tim at Baen Books, and have that ancient paperback signed now. My life is strange.

3: The Lord of the Rings

No book, I think, means so much to me as Tolkien’s masterpiece. We writers are all doomed to mention its importance at some point or another, and so perhaps you roll your eyes to see it here. But indulge me, reader. There was no escaping The Lord of the Rings in the days when the Peter Jackson movies were being released, and though I was not allowed to watch the films when they came out (I wasn’t yet a teenager, and my parents were very careful about what I could see), I was allowed the books. They were a bit difficult, and so I convinced my parents to get me the audiobooks on CD. They were the only audiobooks I owned, and so I would finish them and then immediately start over again. I must have listened to them fifty, sixty times through. Each time I return to it it strikes me more deeply. It’s the only book I know that can move me to tears. Tolkien is inarguably the finest writer fantasy has ever known: stylistically, characterologically, thematically – in every way. He set out to create a new myth, and he succeeded.

4: Dune

The elephant in the room! I read Frank Herbert’s Dune for the first time in sixth or seventh grade. Arthur C. Clarke’s famous quote about it being comparable to The Lord of the Rings drew me in, compounded by the recommendation of my friend, the real Gibson. It scratched an itch I didn’t know I had, for something like Star Wars but… bigger? Deeper? I was absolutely blown away. My first encounter with Dune really tipped me into reading more classic science fiction, where before I’d been mostly a fantasy reader. Herbert and I disagree strongly on the subject of heroes (I believe in them, whereas he is deeply suspicious), nevertheless, the first book is a Shakespearean adventure of the highest order, part Macbeth, part Lawrence of Arabia, part drug-induced exploration of the danger of cults of personality. Herbert also has one of the most successful uses of the third-person omniscient in SF/F, which steeps especially the first act in the kind of tragic irony that would make Sophocles himself applaud.

5: A Canticle for Leibowitz

I attended Enloe High School in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I had the great fortune to take a science fiction literature course as an elective. My teacher, Mr. Goheen, was an old, hardcore SF/F fan. The man read everything, and every day for a year we plowed through book after book. He introduced me to Philip K. Dick, to C.J. Cherryh, to writers like Ursula LeGuin and William Gibson. It made the transition from my tiny Catholic school to the strange and horrifying world of public high school manageable. But one book stuck with me over the years. I only re-read it for the first time a few months ago, but I had never forgotten Walter M. Miller, Jr’s solitary novel (I know there’s a second novel, finished posthumously by Terry Bisson, but I’ve always been hesitant to pick it up, meaning no disrespect). Perhaps it was that religious connection to my earlier childhood, or maybe it was the Fallout-like post-apocalyptic world, or the sharp left turn it takes at the end of act one, but I could never get it out of my head. Or maybe it was that it was only my favorite new book during what was and has remained the darkest and most trying year of my life? Who can say? But compared to the others on this list, it’s the most obscure, and it’s one I absolutely cannot recommend highly enough.

Some Honorable Mentions, Rapid-Fire:

Titus Groan and Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake: More high-Gothic literature than fantasy, but brilliantly entertaining and with a delightful villain-protagonist in Steerpike. First book I really had to fight to find as a kid.

Revenge of the Sith, A Novelization by Matthew Stover: Yes, really. I’m serious. Mr. Stover manages to elevate the prequel film to operatic heights in what is one of the most stylistically unique and impactful books I have ever read. Trust me.

The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold: Toni Weisskopf forced me to read this when I started working at Baen, and I burned through all 15+ books in the span of a couple months. It goes without saying that Lois is one of SF/F’s greatest writers, but the heart in this series and the emotional roller-coaster she can put you through with her sparse, perfect prose is worth every nanosecond.

Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa: Okay, just one manga series. Fullmetal Alchemist is absolutely an entry-level manga series, but it has so much heart and one of the best cast of characters in any series I’ve ever encountered – and it’s just downright cool. It was also the first manga series I really, really got into as a teenager.

 

Empire of Silence is out now from Gollancz – click here to order from Amazon.co.uk