Friday Fun: Your Formative Geek Media

[Pale Violet Light]

The Dark is Rising series…

I loved the first couple but the last ones left me a little colder. I think I didn’t like the changing main characters.

The Tombs of Atuan - Specifically. The whole Earthsea series up to that point was a big formative influence on my ideas re: fantasy, but The Tombs of Atuan for some reason hit me way, way harder than the rest.

It’s my favourite YA novel by quite some way, and I’ve never been able to articulate why. I like ultra-violence; it barely has any. I like world-spanning quests; it is set almost entirely within one tiny desert complex in the middle of nowhere. I like competent, scenery-chewing villains: there are some dark powers, for sure, but they’re nebulous and far past their best. Still can’t figure out why I like it so much.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Still can’t figure out why I like it so much.

Cause it's good

 

[Pale Violet Light]

Cause it's good

That it is. But it resonates with me in a way that the other Earthsea books, which are also good, don’t. In fact I’d say it’s my favourite of her works.

 

[Mercurius]

I was just thinking about this as I was browsing Disney+ for Star Wars stuff I hadn't seen (I just watched, and mostly enjoyed, the Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett).

The "Big Three" in terms of film are Superman, the Star Wars trilogy, and Indiana Jones. But those are sort of "outer" influences. When I saw Excalibur and Wrath of Khan, I knew there were depths there I didn't understand and inspired me more deeply than the other films ever did.

AD&D, of course. In some sense endlessly browsing Deities & Demigods and the DMG during recess and every other spare moment I could manage.

Comic books - especially Marvel, and most especially Claremont's X-Men.

As for books, it was first Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series, Tolkien, David Eddings' Belgariad, Dragonlance, Le Guin's Earthsea, and Tolkien. Did I mention Tolkien? Lots of other stuff, but those had the biggest impact on my young, pre-and-early teen imagination.

 

[Mercurius]

Cause it's good

Yup. Its my favorite Earthsea book, and one of my very favorite novels.

 

[Reynard]

My only completed and published novel owes a lot to Earthsea and I don't try to hide that fact.