Opus Questions with D.K. Ryan

Drearily this past week, we were privy to our first taste of authors contributing to The Black Room Manuscripts regarding their favorite books. When it comes to writing, one must read. No, seriously. To showcase a range of talent, you have to be a “prolific reader.” Not only in our own genre of choice but also in other genres. And when it comes to horror writers, we are often found to have a wide assortment of favorite books we like to keep on our shelves. Research for knowledge and information we can tap into to help shape our own stories. So to keep things interesting and to be a bit villainess, I’ve asked my guests to tell us what their two favorite books are and why. That’s right. You heard me. Only two!!! (laughs manically). So, without further ado, here is D.K. Ryan

D.K. Ryan:

When Thomas S. Flowers asked me to name my two favourite books and why, it was the same as asking which of my children I love best.

Being the owner of close to four thousand books, along with a growing collection on my Kindle, the question is anything but simple. My reading life started out with horror, but along the way I’ve also enjoyed many, Thrillers, Crime, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, the latter of which I love almost as much as the blood and gore that regularly slips through my fingers.

So how does a person wean out a possible two from such an enormous collection? Well. I have to be practical, I have to be honest, and more than anything, I have to take you right back to where it all started. I could have sat back and chosen horror all day long to fill this very short list but if I did that I’d be a fake and the actual reason for my choices would never be known.

As I said above, my reading life started late, nineteen to be exact, and using a book for anything other than to prop up a wonky leg on a table seemed ridiculous and certainly a waste of time, for a young party animal like myself.

Then something strange happened. My brother, who was the total opposite and found joy sitting for hours in his own head, left a copy of James Herbert’s, The Dark on a chair in our bedroom. Thinking that I could use it for no good, I picked it up and for whatever reason, I opened it and started to read. Over the next few hours, the horror within, ignited something. The scenes that were obviously fictitious, didn’t matter, because to me they were real, and I wanted more. My arrogance had completely disappeared along with my ignorance, and in their place, a revelation took place, one, I’m pleased to say, has never left. I became a person who looked at books the same way my brother did, using them to transport me off to different lands and for a long time, the outside world failed to exist. So for that reason, The Dark is the first of my two.

The second is again down to my brother. He became my unofficial go to guy when I wanted something new to read. It had become like a drug. Nothing else could satisfy my cravings more than paper and words. This time it was Terry Brooks who shared his work with the recently converted.

In 1986 he released a book called, Kingdom for sale, his first in what was to become the Landover series, about a Chicago lawyer, who’s lost his way and is bored with life and where it’s taking him. He comes across an advert claiming a kingdom is being sold for the sum of one million dollars. Ben, (the lawyer) has lost his wife and unborn child in a car accident and with nothing to lose takes up the offer to buy and rule this magical kingdom.

This book for me, held something more than, The Dark. It combined both real world and fantasy world, and the struggles of a skeptic, coming to terms with his loss while at the same time asking himself if he really ‘has’ lost it and needs to be locked up for good.

I’m pleased to say that I’ve accumulated quite a collection of Terry Brooks’s work, as well as James Herbert. There are so many more books I could have chosen, and in time I hope to share them all. For now, a more fitting question would have been to name my top one hundred. But Thomas is a writer of horror and somewhat twisted himself, hence the difficult task of naming just two.

Though, I’m happy to say, that what this has done is take me back and remember how those two books made me feel. They made me feel comfortable, and in a sense, relieved, that I’d finally found something, in reading that is as strong today as it was in a quiet bedroom reading, The Dark.

I want to thank D.K. Ryan for taking the time and letting us know a bit about his favorite two books and the history behind his choices. D.K. Ryan is the author of two Zombie Rodent Tales (Egor and the Cruise Ship Nasty, and Egor and the Ouzo Taverna) and a soon to be re-released novel, Family Perfect. But D.K. Ryan is probably best known for his spectacular work on Dead as Hell Horror Podcast with his book review segment, Paper cuts. D.K. Ryan also co-pilots Horror Worlds, a site dedicated to helping promote up and coming horror authors.