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BOOKS THAT INSPIRE
BOOKS
Thank
you for having me over today! When I received the list of topic ideas,
"Character's Book Picks" immediately caught my eye. GHOST PLANET's
reviewer from RT Book Reviews noticed and mentioned the homage I'd paid to
other authors, and I realized that I tend to do this in all my work. I thought
it would be fun to talk about how and why specific book references ended up in
GHOST PLANET.
Early
in the book, my heroine (Elizabeth) finds herself bound symbiotically to the
hero (Murphy), which means she's trapped in the same apartment with a man she
barely knows -- and who completely ignores her. One morning as she sits next to
him on the sofa, trying to work up the nerve to negotiate a bit of freedom in
her oppressive situation, she examines a stack of “antique” books on his coffee
table.
PHINEAS FINN by
Anthony Trollope
First,
I love Trollope, and this is probably my favorite book of his. Second, the
story is about a young Irishman from the country who makes good in the British
parliament. Murphy is a young Irishman from the country who makes good as a
psychologist on Ardagh 1 (the “ghost planet”).
PAINGOD by Harlan
Ellison
This
is a short story in a collection I read many years ago. It's about an alien
being whose job it is to dispense suffering to humanity, the premise being that
we cannot experience pleasure and joy without pain as a foil. I thought of it
because of the questions the heroine is asking at this point in the story: Is
there a being or entity responsible for her reincarnation as an alien? What is
the true nature of her existence? Has she been created only to suffer?
SOLARIS by
Stanislaw Lem
The
ghost-aliens in GHOST PLANET are reincarnated beings who are triggered by the
colonists' connection to dead family and friends, similar to the aliens in this
sci-fi classic. Before writing my book, I saw, and was very moved by, the
Steven Soderbergh/George Clooney film adaptation of Lem's novel. I then read
the book, which takes less of a romantic approach, but was fascinating. I took
these concepts further in GHOST PLANET, creating a symbiotic link between
ghosts and colonists, and between the ghost/colonist pairs and the planet
itself. I also wrote it from an alien’s point of view, and gave her the smarts
and determination to overcome her victim status.
WATERSHIP DOWN by
Richard Adams
This
was my favorite book as a teen (though it's not a YA novel). It's about a group
of rabbits who abandon their warren based on a premonition that it's going to
be destroyed. The story follows their quest to find a new home. It's loaded
with politics, conflict, and poignant emotion. The rabbits consider joining two
warrens that turn out to be frighteningly unsuitable, and I wove
characteristics of both into Devil's Rock, the rebel camp where Elizabeth and
Murphy take refuge.
Shortly
after the sofa scene, in a moment of feeling particularly oppressed by her
status as a "ghost," Elizabeth writes a line on the wall of the
closet she's sleeping in, "Don't let the bastards grind you down."
The line is from:
THE HANDMAID'S TALE
by Margaret Atwood
This
grim tale made a huge impression on me. The heroine (Offred) is forced into
this biblically inspired role of "handmaid," which is a euphemism for
reproductive slave. Offred sleeps in a small room in the house of her master
(Fred), much as Elizabeth sleeps in the closet-bedroom of Murphy's former
ghost. One night Offred discovers that the previous handmaid carved the Latin
version of this line into her cupboard.
Finally,
I slipped another of my favorites into the story as Elizabeth reads to a cranky
Murphy in an effort to distract him from the immobility required by broken
ribs. He smugly guesses the book is PRIDE & PREJUDICE, but it's actually:
JANE EYRE by Charlotte
Bronte
It
would be a stretch to try and tie this to GHOST PLANET, although now that I
think about it both novels have a big mystery with a supernatural flavor. But I
included JANE EYRE because it was my "gateway" classic English novel
-- it drew my attention to a whole new category of books that brought me
countless hours of happy reading.
How
about you? What books have inspired you to create, or have somehow changed the
way you look at the world?
__________________________________
SHARON LYNN FISHER is the author of GHOST PLANET,
coming from Tor Books on Oct. 30. The book -- a two-time RWA Golden Heart
finalist -- is a sci-fi/romance blend that offers a "fresh and fascinating
take on the human-alien problem" (says author Linnea Sinclair). She lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she is
hard at work on her next novel and battles writerly angst with baked goods,
Irish tea, and champagne.
Find Sharon and her books
__________________________________
Ghost Planet
Indiebound,
Amazon,
Barnes & Noble,
BooksAMillion,
Powells
Psychologist Elizabeth
Cole prepared for the worst when she accepted a job on a newly
discovered world—a world where every colonist is tethered to an alien
who manifests in the form of a dead loved one. But she never expected
she'd struggle with the requirement to shun these "ghosts." She never
expected to be so attracted to the charming Irishman assigned as her
supervisor. And she certainly never expected to discover she died in a
transport crash en route to the planet.
As a ghost, Elizabeth is
symbiotically linked to her supervisor, Murphy—creator of the Ghost
Protocol, which forbids him to acknowledge or interact with her.
Confused and alone—oppressed by her ghost status and tormented by
forbidden love—Elizabeth works to unlock the secrets of her own
existence.
But her quest for answers lands her in a tug-of-war
between powerful interests, and she soon finds herself a pawn in the
struggle for control of the planet…a struggle that could separate her
forever from the man that she loves.
__________________________________
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