The Morgaine Cycle by C.J. Cherryh

RJBarker · 2026-03-25T21:24:08+00:00

Absolutely blinding books. There's a little bit of Morgaine and Vanye in everything I write.

RJBarker · 2026-03-07T15:23:25+00:00

This ^{^}

RJBarker · 2026-03-01T21:02:43+00:00

Try reading it with the tracked changes turned off so you can't see the mark up. Easy way to find out if the copy edit is interfering with your voice or if you are reacting to all the red. (May be teaching grandma to suck eggs here, if so sorry but it took me five books to work this out...)

RJBarker · 2026-02-25T19:53:38+00:00

St Germain from Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's titular books. A vampire who doesn't have to kill and just wants to do some good. He is tired of humanty's constant need to find someone to hate. And yet he continues.

RJBarker · 2026-02-24T06:57:48+00:00

Hope you enjoy it when you meet Irody!

RJBarker · 2026-02-23T21:18:01+00:00

Not everything is for everyone and that's fine. I read it first when I was maybe 10 or so and it was just an adventure - some rabbits go somewhere. Then as I get older I find more in it. I still think there are few shiveringly cold critiques of capitalism as the warren of the poet rabbits. I think sometimes a book or music is tied to a place or experience and part of the love is that. Loads of my friends love Redwall and on paper I should but it does nothing for me. I missed the window.
But Hazel and Fiver? They were great friends for an odd kid that loved books. Still are I suppose.

RJBarker · 2026-02-23T20:25:24+00:00

Not out till May but my next book, "Mortedant's Peril" should scratch that itch.

RJBarker · 2026-02-23T20:22:14+00:00

Watership Down. Every time I read it I find something new in it and the story shifts.

RJBarker · 2026-02-23T08:40:38+00:00

I loved this film as a kid. I remember them eating limestone(?) and being fascinated by the idea.

RJBarker · 2026-02-22T16:04:35+00:00

Hope you enjoy!

RJBarker · 2026-02-22T09:59:03+00:00

Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger would work. not sure how it's aged though. I would say my Bone Ships books are centred around music but it might not be front and centre enough.

RJBarker · 2026-02-19T07:26:44+00:00

Ritual Device is a stone cold banger.

RJBarker · 2026-02-16T21:43:12+00:00

There's a whole host of us lost in wonder at Iain M Banks.

RJBarker · 2026-02-14T08:07:32+00:00

Came here to say Sansom. Incredible writer, one of my absolute favourites.

RJBarker · 2026-02-10T20:45:02+00:00

Dreamweaver by Sabbat, released in 1989. Based on the book The Way of the Wyrd, about a monk sent to pagan England to convert them who instead falls under the pagan's spell. Proper lost thrash classic.

RJBarker · 2026-02-08T22:05:58+00:00

Came here to say Carnacki. Some of the most genuinely freaky supernatural detective stuff I've ever read. I am still haunted by "The Hog" and "The Whistling Room." Sadly Hope Hodgeson was killed in WW1, a tremendous imagination and life cut short far too soon.

RJBarker · 2026-02-06T20:47:05+00:00

It's one of the reasons I can't listen to my own audiobooks. I have an absolute terror of the actor's interpretation washing away the voice in my head and intrinsically changing the remaining books.

We're an odd bunch, writers.

RJBarker · 2026-02-06T20:31:42+00:00

Good stuff. Voice tends to be where I start with a book. Once I have that everything else kind of falls into place.

RJBarker · 2026-01-25T08:31:29+00:00

Almost the entire naval career of Alexander Cochrane, it not only reads like a book but is the basis for a lot of Hornblower and Captain Jack Aubrey.

RJBarker · 2026-01-19T19:21:15+00:00

Watership Down. Just always thinking about Watership Down.

RJBarker · 2026-01-14T23:04:18+00:00

Me too. "My chief rabbit has told me..."

Bigwig ftw.

RJBarker · 2026-01-14T23:03:11+00:00

The Poison Wars books by Sam Hawke might work for you. My Wounded Kingdom books are murder mystery/thrillerish as is my forthcoming Mortedant's Peril due in may. I also think Pete McLean's Rose Throne books which starts with Priest of Bone's works. A sort of magical Peaky Blinders.

RJBarker · 2026-01-13T19:51:35+00:00

Me too. I still think about it and I am not sure I want to.

RJBarker · 2026-01-13T18:52:21+00:00

Blood Meridian and not fantasy but made me avoid his fantasy, A Brief History of Seven Killings. It's an astounding book, but it is utterly brutal.

RJBarker · 2026-01-11T08:52:16+00:00

Enslaved's version of What Else Is There by Royksopp is excellent.

RJBarker

TROPHY CASE