This is the second in a new feature I’d like to become a mainstay on Civilian Reader, in which I ask authors and other bloggers to write a short piece about their favourite novels. Here, David Annandale tells us about a descent into the Pit that sparked his imagination and kept him coming back for more…
Inferno by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
(Star Books/Orb, 1977)
As I thought about this question, I was struck by the fact that if I had been asked simply what my favourite book was, I would have unhesitatingly said Denis Gifford’s A Pictorial History of Horror Movies. That book’s impact on my 10-year-old self was such that it pretty much determined the course the rest of my life would follow, particularly in matters creative and academic. But my favourite novel? That question gave me a lot more pause. Then I asked myself whether there had been a novel that wound up influencing me in ways not unlike the Gifford book did. There was: Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s Inferno (1977).
