Oh noes! Top 5 meme me, baby.

[antennapedia]

Ask me my Top Five Whatevers. Fannish or literary or otherwise. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! Fandoms, Disney cartoons, women in my fandoms, OTPs, celebrity crushes, books I wish would be made into movies, love songs. And I will answer them all in a new post (or in comments or in skywriting).Ganked from just about everywhere. Possibly

Comments

[daiseechain]

Top five books you wish you'd written.

And top five characters you'd shag. (because someone needs to lower the tone of this meme :-DD )

Top five books I wish I'd written.

[antennapedia]

John M. Ford, The Final Reflection. The best piece of fanfiction I have ever read. A bildungsroman for a Klingon. Screw ST:NG. This is how Klingons really are. Cleverly structured in a way that illustrates its theme, strong prose. A great SF novel as well as great fanfic. RIP Mike Ford.

Dorothy Sayers, Murder Must Advertise. The Nine Tailors is her best novel, but I love this one for the verbal pyrotechnics. Advertising slogans, jingles, campaigns. A view into the life of an London advertising firm in the 1920s, with details drawn from Sayers' own experience in one. Plus catapults, and an inexcusable yet fun cricket match featuring the prowess of Lord Peter Sue. Whoever it was he was based on, Sayers was rather embarrassingly in love with him. And yet, and yet, I'll re-read this cheerfully any day. I wish I could pull off that kind of clever wordplay.

Terry Pratchett, Small Gods. In which Mr Pratchett gets marvelously pissed off about religion, and works it out while making his readers laugh helplessly. I wish I could write

Re: Top five books I wish I'd written.

[daiseechain]

I've only read one of these: Terry's 'Small Gods', which is still one of my favourites of his works.

So.. the combination of clever wording and tight plotting will make you wish you'd written that particular book? Or is an either/or response?

Re: Top five books I wish I'd written.

[antennapedia]

I am a sucker for structural games!
The clever wordplay often snags me, but probably isn't enough by itself.

"Use of Weapons" is unusual in this list in that it is the only one that is (hrm, finding a way not to be spoilery here) a downer in that the hero is thwarted in the pursuit of his/her goals. I generally love best the books in which the protagonists get to, if not where they wanted to go at the start, at least to where they needed to go after all.

Re: Top five books I wish I'd written.

[daiseechain]

That sounds really interesting. I'll add it to my 'To Read' list. I actually enjoy endings where everything does not go as planned.

Top five characters I'd shag.

[antennapedia]

James Bond, Daniel Craig edition. Nummy.

Mr Darcy, Colin Firth edition. Do I have to justify this one?

Archie Leach. Remember him? John Cleese's character in A Fish Called Wanda. He claims he's a good lover, or was once upon a time, and I bet he's right. He's got Cary Grant's real name, after all.

Crash Davis, Bull Durham. Man enough to have sex in a bathtub filled with floating scented candles, driven enough to head off afterward to finish off the minor league home run record.

And yeah, I'd shag our favorite Watcher/librarian too.

Re: Top five characters I'd shag.

[daiseechain]

Never doubted Giles would come up, even for a second :-D

With you on Darcy.

As for the Craig edition of Bond, he's as good to look at as ever, but that version of Bond scares the hell out of me. I do think he's much more interesting than the other versions, but he's a little too sociopathic even by my standards, and given I like Jayne, Jack Sparrow, and prefer Ripper to Giles, that's saying something!