Ten influential Books

When you haven't been writing, there's always memes. In this case, catcetera tagged me on Facebook to describe ten books that had a big influence on my life. I'm supposed to tag three other people to keep the meme going, but I'm not a big fan of obligating people to do things for my amusement. I think it's a fun exercise, so I'll just tag "people on my livejournal feed who think it would be fun".

Onto the books, in no particular order:

1) The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. Simply the best book on skeptical thinking I've ever read. The Baloney-detection kit alone is reason to have this book included in high-school curriculums everywhere. I've owned five copies of this book. They keep getting "loaned" out.

2) The Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner. This book is responsible for my love of Alice in Wonderland. It gave me a deeper understanding of the source material and triggered a love for nonsense verse and logical puzzles.

3) A Night to Remember by Walter Lord. Ballard's discovery of Titanic's wreck in 1985 may have triggered my love of Titanic, but it was Walter Lord's book that sealed it. Many books have been written about the details. This is still the best overview of what happened for the beginner. Titanic would be a historical footnote if it weren't for Walter Lord.

4) The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. What would you do if the end of the world happened? This book gave me my first taste of an everyman dealing with a cozy calamity. I've had a fondness for those stories ever since. This is also a zombie apocalypse novel if you squint hard enough.

5) The Chrysalids also by John Wyndham. This is the better of the two, and just the thing for my teenage self to dig his teeth into, especially when my teenage self was so horribly misunderstood by the hidebound grownups around me.

6) The C Programming Language by Kernighan & Ritchie. There are richer languages out there (C's descendants C++ and C# for example), but I still have a soft spot for C, warts and all, since it was the first programming language I truly grokked. Plus, any book that has sat on my desk, constantly used, for my entire professional life, must be influential.

7) The Stand by Stephen King. The first time I truly identified with one of the bad guys was this novel. I still feel angry that HEL didn't make the right decision.

8) Captain Canuck #4 by Richard Comely. This was the comic that got me into collecting - 'nuff said.

9) The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay. Modern characters transported to a fantasy realm? Yes please. The best example of that trope that I've ever read. Approaching the end, I dreaded that the ending could not live up to the wonder of the previous pages. My fears were unfounded - the last page was as good as it could be and let me put the book down with a feeling of satisfaction that few books have equaled.

10) ElfQuest by Wendy and Richard Pini. The original twenty issues were awesome. A pity they never wrote anything else. These books introduced me to Fandom and for that alone, they deserve a place on this list.

SCA, Triggers, and Exit Strategies

An Tir September Crown is coming up and I'm going. However, it's the most likely sort of SCA event for me to have adverse mental reactions to. Which is to say that I often find SCA events triggering, despite my overall enjoyment of them.

Events that don't have much for me to do, or are very lengthy, or have many people I don't know - these are the sorts of events that trigger a depressive incident. Events that have what I think of as "SCA Exclusivity" are often the worst. Those are the events where some lucky person gets elevated from the pack and everyone declares long and loudly how special they are and how much they belong. I find that sort of thing underlines my own outsider status. I know it's not rational, but it's still there.

September Crown promises to have all that. In fact, one of the reasons I'm going is I had a premonition that someone I know is going to get the SCA Exclusivity treatment, and I'd like to see it (It being long overdue, and no, I don't care if thinking "about damn time" upsets some people). I'm not going to jinx it by saying who that person is here, but ask me in private and I'll likely tell you. And no, I don't have supernatural powers or any sort of insider knowledge. I just think it's the right time for them.

Other triggers are all well represented: It's an event outside of my home area, that focuses on the Crown tournament. Travel time is long so I can't bug out early. Plus I'm currently fighting a cold. The illness isn't really restricting me in any way, but it will sap my mental defenses, so I need to be aware of that.

On the other hand, there will be a lot of people whom I do know at the event, including people I only see rarely. Enough Montengarde folk will be there that I can socialize without feeling like any one person's fifth wheel.

Finally, the event is in the Greater Vancouver area, which is a plus. If all else fails, I can simply leave for awhile to get my head on straight. The trick will be to recognize the point where that will do me good, rather than after I've crashed. It's still good to get away after a crash, since I don't want to alienate all the people around me by being Eeyore, but it's not exactly Plan-A.

Plan-A is to have a good time. Plan-B is have as good a time as possible, while using exit-strategies in an intelligent and restrained manner. Plan-C is to EJECT EJECT EJECT.

So, don't drink unless I'm having a good time. Be prepared to leave the site (temporarily if possible) if I'm feeling down. Remember that other people getting accolades is a good thing and it's not all about me.

So yeah, tomorrow I start my road trip.

• Thursday: Leave work early, drive to Revelstoke.
  
• Friday: Drive to Crown, set up camp, reconnoiter.
  
• Saturday: Shoot things, watch people beat each other with sticks, drink (maybe).
  
• Sunday: Shoot more things, hang out.
  
• Monday: Break camp, find a hotel, stand under the shower for two hours.
  
• Tuesday-Wednesday: Hang around Port Wood and visit the Vancouver peeps.
  
• Thursday: Bid farewell to othelianna.
  
• Thursday or Friday: Drive to Revelstoke (depending on timing).
  
• Friday or Saturday: Home again, home again. Jiggity-jig.