Philip Palmer’s Shelfie
This shelf is a testament to the chaos of my life, and my library. Books are desperately double stacked, and the alphabet is visibly insulted by the lurking copies of McCaffrey and Niven next to a shelf of H’s. But at least I have all my books safely lined up on display, no longer lying on the floor as fodder for carpet moths.
Two writers dominate this shelf. Peter Hamilton writes the longest books of any SF writer I know and even with double stacking he owns that bit of wood. Peter is in my view one of the greats of the science fiction world; each of his books is a journey through many wondrous realms, and once you enter his books then your own life and the birthdays of those near and dear to you may become neglected. His magic is the sheer breadth of his imagination, which I adore.
The most beautiful books there are editions of Robert E. Howard stories; quaint and un-woke without doubt to our modern eyes, but compelling and vivid in extremis. The Conan stories and others from his pen were a big inspiration to the ‘neo-pulp’ SF novels which I wrote for Orbit back in the day, including and especially Artemis. All my SF novels from that era are wild; but let’s face it, still pretty tame compared to Mr Howard.
You can also see some Robert Holdstocks in there; what a great writer. And, believe it or not, his name does begin with H…
Philip Palmer is a science fiction and fantasy novelist and also a screenwriter, film producer and audio drama writer. He is currently writing a fantasy thriller about a psychic detective for BBC Radio Wales and is actively working on a number of TV and film projects.
Shelfies is edited by Lavie Tidhar and Jared Shurin.
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