(An exercise in self-indulgence)

• Books
• Music
• Movies

These days, the Science Fiction Book Club sucks away a lot of my money, and the local bookstores suck away even more. I don't have a huge list of favorite authors, as there are very few authors that I like well enough to want to read everything they put out. In fact, there's only one author currently on the list: H.P. Lovecraft. I've yet to read a story from Lovecraft that I disliked.

I confess to being a dabbler, however. Most of my knowledge of and enthusiasm for Lovecraft comes from the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, which marks me as an "unwashed heathen" among the more serious Lovecraft aficionados. But nonetheless I have gone out and purchased (and read) several collections of Lovecraftian works, and they're all brilliant and spooky. My favorite stories would have to be "A Shadow Out of Time" and "The Statement of Randolph Carter."

What I lack in the "favorite author" department, I more than make up for in the "favorite series" department. See, the biggest reason I don't have a "favorite author" is because I've yet to find an author who always writes stuff about which I want to read. A perfect example is the mystery writer Ellis Peters. Peters (real name: Edith Pargeter) wrote a number of mystery novels before her death in 1995. Several of them are modern mysteries (at least at the time they were written) with modern heroes/heroines. And I have utterly no interest in reading them.

However, she also wrote a number of mysteries based around Brother Cadfael, a 12th-Century monk and part-time sleuth. These novels (20 in all) are endlessly fascinating and capture the flavor of the times, and the Brother Cadfael series is among my favorite series of books.

Some of my other favorite series include:

• The Retief series, by Keith Laumer - This is truly one of the most underrated SF series of all time. Retief, hero of the series, is a resourceful, square-jawed, swash-buckling combination of Indiana Jones and James Bond. What sets him apart from the other resourceful, square-jawed, swash-buckling heroes in SF is that he works for the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne -- an organization filled with pencil pushers, sycophants, obfuscators, career brown-nosers, and a host of other feckless bureaucrats. Their first instinct when faced with any dire crisis is to send off a stern memo. Retief fits into this organization like oil spill on an ice floe, and his tendency to actually confront the problem (and subsequently solve it) has earned him the perpetual disdain of the rest of the thumb-twiddlers in the CDT. Only his immediate boss, the mostly hapless Ben Magnan, has any grudging appreciation for Retief's talents. The series is uproariously funny, due no doubt to the fact that Keith Laumer actually worked in an American embassy on foreign soil. The books are sadly out of print, but if you can find them, they're highly recommended. (I note that there don't seem to be any Retief websites out there. I may have to put one up...)
  
  
• The Sector General series, by James White - Another underrated series, this one revolves around a huge interstellar hospital with 384 levels, a staff in the tens of thousands, and the facilities to recreate any environment (atmosphere, gravity, food, etc) necessary to support and, more importantly, give medical treatment to, the various denizens of the galaxy. Another series that should have a website devoted to it, but doesn't.
  
  
• The Eternal Champion series, by Michael Moorcock - I'm still working my way through this one. This is the story of the Eternal Champion, doomed to live in thousands of incarnations, in thousands of different realities, always fighting against the Gods of Chaos. The most famous of Moorcock's Eternal Champions is Elric of Melniboné, the albino sorceror with the soul-eating runesword Stormbringer. White Wolf has thoughtfully collected the Eternal Champion series into a 15-volume set of books. These books are a must for Eternal Champion fans.
  
  
• The Belgariad/Malloreon sequence, by David Eddings -- A 10-volume sequence, comprised of two distinct 5-volume series. The Belgariad recounts the tale of young Garion, who starts the series as a simple farm boy, and progresses throughout the series to become a sorceror, then a king, then the instrument of Prophecy and the slayer of an evil God. The Malloreon starts off shortly after the end of the Belgariad, but years fly by in the first volume, and by the end of the first volume, 11 years have passed since the end of the Belgariad. Our Heroes(tm) discover that the Dark Prophecy they believed to be banished in the Belgariad was apparently not banished (surprise!), and has set in motion a plan that requires the kidnapping and subsequent sacrifice of Garion's son. Our Heroes(tm) naturally wish to prevent this.

  I like the series as a whole, except for Pawn of Prophecy, the first novel of the Belgariad. This novel is rife with an overabundance of dialogue in lieu of descriptive exposition, and makes the reading somewhat arduous. Later volumes improve in this regard. I also have some issues with Edding's portrayal of female characters, almost all of whom are bitchy and manipulative to some degree or other. Indeed, the two main female characters are often bitchy to the point of being shrewish. But that's a conversation for another time.
  
  

• The Gandalara Cycle, by Randall Garrett and Vickie Ann Heydron -- An interesting and underappreciated 7-volume series, started by Garrett and finished by Heydron after Garrett's death. The series concerns itself with a sick, dying professor of linguistics who finds himself transported into the body of a young warrior in the land of Gandalara. Thereafter follows much swashbuckling adventure and derring-do in the vein of John Norman's Gor series, but without the sexual/BDSM themes. One of the unique facets of the series is that the main character is part of an elite clan of warriors who ride Sha'ums, large predatory cats about the size of a horse.
  
  
• The Lord D'Arcy series, also by Randall Garrett -- These are great fun, but they're out of print and very difficult to find (alas). The basic premise: King Richard I did not die in 1199, and instead lead England into an age of prosperity. It is now the 1970s. The revolutionary war never happened, the U.S. is still a part of the vast British empire, magic has become the science of the day, and technology is viewed as an arcane and dubious pursuit. Lord D'Arcy is a Sherlock Holmes-esque investigator for the current King, and his Watson is an Irish "forensic sorceror" named Seamus. The stories themselves read much like Sherlock Holmes stories, except that a rigorous application of "scientific magic" is usually involved in solving the crimes.
  
  
• The Incarnations of Immortality series, by Piers Anthony -- The first book of the series, On A Pale Horse, is one of the best books I've ever read. It's a great, great book. The rest of the series is almost as good. The basic thrust of the series is that the Universe has certain Official Positions (Death, War, Time, Fate, Nature, Good, Evil) which are filled by normal mortal human beings (who are given powers and abilities commensurate with their new status). The first five books concern themselves with Death, Time, Fate, War, and Nature attempting to thwart various and sundry machinations of the Incarnation of Evil. The sixth book deftly shows us that the Incarnation of Evil is just a normal, even sympathetic, guy who takes his job very seriously. The seventh book takes a group of characters on a quest for the Incarnation of Good, who seems to have taken a powder and abandoned his responsibilities.
  
  
• The Xanth series, also by Piers Anthony -- Actually, it's been several years since last I visited the Xanth series, and I'm behind in my reading. However, I've read the first 10-12 or so, and enjoyed them. Anthony readily admits that he writes the series just to "pay the bills," and the books are unashamedly brain candy. But they're entertaining bits of brain candy, and you can easily read through several without losing interest. The series chronicles the exploits of a wide variety of denizens in the magical land of Xanth. Xanth looks suspiciously like Florida, and each resident of Xanth has a magical talent (either minor or major) which can be both a help and a hinderance, depending on the circumstances.
  
  
• The Dragonriders of Pern series, by Anne McCaffery -- To be honest, I've only read the first six novels in the series: Dragonquest, Dragonflight, The White Dragon, Dragonsinger, Dragonsong, and Dragondrums. But these novels are absolutely fantastic. You would be hard-pressed to find any author in any genre who could match McCaffery's talents for creating living, breathing characters. The essential story of the Pern saga is that Pern is a metal-poor planet, formerly a colony of some Intergalactic empire, but now lost in the mists of time. So much time has passed, in fact, that the denizens of Pern don't know that they're descendants of the original colonists. Pern has a sister planet that, every so often, passes close (relatively speaking) to Pern. During this close passage, deadly spores -- called Thread -- cross the interplanetary void and fall on Pern, eating anything organic (and doing so with quick and deadly efficiency). To combat this, the original colonists (as we find out in later books in the series) genetically engineered a race of Dragons that (A) were telepathic; (B) could teleport from place to place while carrying a human rider; and (B) breathed fire which would destroy the Thread in mid-air.

  The first three books lay out the basic setting, and concern themselves with the first Threadfall in nearly 400 years (after everyone has forgotten about Thread). The second three books (often claimed to be "juvenile fiction") concern themselves with Menolly, daughter of a prominent politician, who strives to be the first female "Harper".
  
  

• Finally, no list of my favorite books would be complete without mentioning my weakness and my guilty pleasures: Books set in RPG worlds. What can I say? They're often cheesy and pulpish, but I'm a sucker for 'em. Some of my favorites include:
  • The original three Drizzt Do'urden books by R.A. Salvatore, set in the AD&D Forgotten Realms setting.
  • A 3-volume series set in the Forgotten Realms, and featuring Alias the sell-sword and her faithful companion, the saurial paladin Dragonbait. (Can't remember the author for this one.)
  • Most of the AD&D Ravenloft books. Vampire of the Mists, Knight of the Black Rose, and Dance of the Dead are among the better ones.
  • The 5-volume "Cloakmaster Cycle" for the Spelljammer AD&D setting.
  • The three Dark Conspiracy novels by Mike Stackpole.
  • The first (and so far as I know, the only) Paranoia novel.
  • The first Dragonlance series, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
  • The 3-volume "Coming of the Avatars" series by Troy Denning, for the Forgotten Realms setting.
  • The 5-volume "Prism Pentad" series, also by Troy Denning, for AD&D's Dark Sun setting.
  • Several Shadowrun books.
  • The 3-volume "Blood War" saga for the Planescape setting. These novels suck in a major way, and the writer, J. Robert King, couldn't describe his way out of the inside of a wet paper bag. I include it here because (A) I like the Planescape setting that much; and (B) I'm such a sucker for RPG-based books that I bought them all knowing how bad they'd be.
  • Honorable Mention: The 4-volume series based on the Doom computer game.

All of my favorite music features guitar virtuosity. And I'm not speaking about sheer technical ability, but rather a sense of music and harmony and melody as filtered through the six-stringed instrument which lies at the foundation of most all rock-and-roll.

My favorite band, bar none, is Blue Öyster Cult. Only one other band (see below) has managed to as effectively thrill that part of my soul which contains my musical tastes, and no other band has been able to capture my imagination quite like the Oyster Boys. Their music is frequently dark, always melodic, and often contains a strong undercurrent of science fiction. Their guitarist, Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser, is (in my humble but accurate opinion) one of the most underrated and underappreciated rock guitarists of all time. His talents easily meet or exceed the talents of other, more recognized guitarists, and he can either take a slow-hand approach (the excellent "Then Came the Last Days of May" -- particularly the live version), or he can rip through the chops like he was playing thrash metal (cf. some of the songs on their latest CD Heaven Forbid). I like them so much, I have massive redundancy in my collection. I've got the entire BOC collection on vinyl, and twice on casette -- once on self-made recordings from the vinyl, and again on the original casettes themselves. And now I'm working on getting the collection on CD.

My second favorite band is Rush. Like BOC, Rush has apparently resonated with that part of my soul that dictates my musical preferences. Rush is the original "power trio," and each member of the band is regarded as a virtuoso in his particular instrument. Particularly, Neil Peart is widely considered the greatest rock drummer Of All Time(tm). And while I love their music, I think one of the biggest reasons I like Rush is the quality of their lyrics. For most of their career, the music has been written by Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee, while the lyrics have been written by Peart. And Peart is an absolute master at writing socially relevant lyrics that avoid being preachy. Rush is truly a philosopher's rock band.

Some of my other favorite musicians are:

• Joe Satriani -- The things this man can do with a guitar are amazing. As long as he doesn't try to sing <shudder>, he's great. And "Surfing with the Alien" is one of the Great Guitar Songs of All Time(tm).
  
  
• Queen -- Brian May, another underrated guitarist. And Freddie Mercury, of course. Almost two decades of producing quality rock-n-roll, many of which are rightly considered classics.
  
  
• Jethro Tull -- Rock-n-roll with a definite medieval twist, thanks to the flute-playing of Ian Anderson. Ironically, most people get so lost in the novelty of Anderson's flute that they fail to notice that Martin Barre can really pound on the guitar. The guitar solo in "Aqualung" is a classic.
  
  
• Pink Floyd -- Although I like Pink Floyd, they've never made a significant inroad into my music collection. But they crafted one of my all-time favorite recordings: The Wall. I consider The Wall to be one of the greatest recordings ever, and I can easily listen to it over and over for hours. I've worn out 3 cassette tapes doing just that, in fact.
  
  
• Yes -- I'm a heretic in that I prefer "Yes West" (i.e. the later version of Yes featuring Trevor Rabin on guitar, Tony Kaye on keyboards, and Alan White on drums) over "Classic Yes" (i.e Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Greg Wakeman, and Steve Howe). I still like "Classic Yes," but not as much as "Yes West." And 90125 is probably my favorite single album.
  
  
• Meat Loaf -- The two-ton rock singer with the operatic voice. Anything he does in collaboration with Jim Steinman is, by definition, worth a listen. One of the few musicians I like for vocal talents rather than guitar talents.
  
  
• The Police -- I've seen 'em twice in concert, and they were both fantastic shows. Their music was classified as "new wave," but whatever it is, it's good rock-n-roll.
  
  
• Weird Al Yankovic -- Hey, what can I say? I was listening to Weird Al on the Dr. Demento show, long before he ever got his first record contract and became the big star he is today. Given what his band has to do, they're pretty damned talented.
  
  

• Boston
• Adrian Legg (No website available, alas. The only entry I could find for him was a dead link.)
• Aerosmith
• Split Enz
• Steve Vai
• The Eagles
• Dire Straits
• Eric Johnson

• "Then Came the Last Days of May" (Live version) -- Blue Oyster Cult
• "Cliffs of Dover" -- Eric Johnson
• "Buck's Boogie" -- Blue Oyster Cult
• "Surfin' with the Alien" -- Joe Satriani
• "Sultans of Swing" -- Dire Straits

My favorite movie of all time is, naturally, a "guilty pleasure" sort of movie: The Warriors. You'll never see it on any list of The Great Movies of All Time(tm), but it's the only movie I can sit and watch three times in a row in one sitting (pausing only to eat, go to the bathroom, etc). The movie starts off with a meeting in Central Park. Nine representatives from each street gang have come to listen to the words of Cyrus, leader of the largest street gang in New York City. Cyrus entices them to join together instead of fighting each other, so that they may take over the city. Then, out of nowhere, someone shoots Cyrus and blames it on the Warriors. The Warriors are a gang from Coney Island (a long ways away from Central Park), and suddenly there's a price on their head. Every gang in New York is out to get the Warriors, and they've got to fight their way back to Coney Island and clear their name at the same time.

Other Favorites:

• Animal House -- One of the funniest movies I've ever seen. There's not a bad moment in this comedy about life in a '60s frat house.
  
  
• The Boys in Company C -- One of the first movies about the Vietnam War, this movie traces the lives of five men as they go through basic training and eventually end up in Vietnam. While not as gritty as later Vietnam movies, neither does it glamorize or gloss over the war.
  
  
• Alien -- Equal parts horror and science fiction, this movie had me on the edge of my seat when I first convinced my father to take me to see it back when I was 12. 20 years and repeated viewings haven't diminished it's impact or its quality.
  
  
• Aliens -- The sequel to Alien, this time the tone of the movie moves from unrelenting horror to unrelenting action, as Ripley and a cadre of space marines wage all-out war on the deadly aliens.
  
  
• The James Bond movies -- If you don't know about this popular, long-standing series of movies, I strongly urge you to get out from behind the computer more often.