Shelfies #47: Harvey Hamer

When pondering which section of collection to share—childhood books, works from writers I’ve come to know as an adult, Star Wars, research books, TBR—I decided to specially arrange this shelfie to showcase five works that changed and inspired me on my author journey. 

After a fallow reading period, it was Rick Riordan’s universe that kept me turning pages and ignited my love of mythology, and more importantly, storytelling. While Riordan’s Kane Chronicles greatly inspired the ancient Egyptian threads in my writing as I grew up, I chose The Lost Hero as it introduced me to multi-POV stories and changed the way I’d structure my chapters, books and character arcs going forward. 

Another big inspiration, as I moved from YA to adult books (probably the book that prompted that change as Star Wars was on the rise again), was Chuck Wending’s Aftermath trilogy. He included interludes, each one a different character’s POV on some distant planet, little snippets of a massive galaxy. This was my first time learning truly how large fictional universes could be, and inspired interludes of my own. Wendig also introduced me properly to the urgency of present tense, which I adapted into my own work and is now my tense of choice! 

2022 was the year I finally decided to read through Tolkien’s completed Middle Earth works. I’d tried The Silmarillion while I was thirteen and didn’t quite make it. But Lord of the Rings was my favourite franchise before Star Wars’s resurgence. I had a lot of toys and games… but actually diving into Tolkien’s world after all that faux familiarity from the adaptations was almost a religious experience. I expanded on one special aligning of fellowships here, on M.E. Rothwell’s now rebranded newsletter, which was the first time my writing received such an audience reaction. 

From one myth to another, Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick with incredible art from Phil Jiminez, Gene Ha and Nicola Scott and many more, is here to represent my growing passion for comics. For years I’d collected Star Wars titles, but over the last two have become immersed, through so many writers’ newsletters and five conventions last year, in the incredible medium. While this wasn’t the title that inspired me to write my own—how could I ever scratch the surface of this godly art?—it truly showed me what the medium was capable of, something more beautiful and powerful and detailed than any prose description could conjure. 

Speaking of conventions, Of Shadows, Stars, and Sabers, the first anthology from Jendia Gammon and Gareth L. Powell’s Stars and Sabers Publishing, is here to represent the many friendly acquaintances I’ve made in the speculative space since starting reading newsletters, writing and hosting my own and just being active in online communities and the world of publishing. The book contains twenty-nine incredible stories, but symbolises here everyone I’ve met in person or online who’s shared their advice, support and words with me. In fact, the first such panel I attended at my first solo convention experience was one with Lavie and Una McCormack, hosted by Stark Holborn at MCM.

Harvey Hamer’s a writer of novels, short stories, screenplays and comics from South East England. His Diamond Dimensions Universe is an interconnected narrative originally told across twenty-two books in three main series spanning millennia and a few dozen worlds. Harvey’s fiction has been commended by the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Author of Tomorrow Prize, longlisted for Adventures in Fiction’s Spotlight First Novel Award, and his pilot script, The Watchers, has won awards on Coverfly. He’s also a contributor to Star Wars Insider, script writer for Be Scene: Director’s Cut and is lead writer on an unannounced indie game. Harvey’s fortnightly newsletter A Long Time Ago... asks guests to share their favourite Star Wars story and favourite historical site. 

Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin. For more Shelfies, please join us on Instagram at @shelfiesplease.