My Own Influences as a Writer, Part 1: Ordered List

I was going over how I wanted to approach this, and I want to talk about specific works, rather than just general authors. Further, every single author listed here is a problematic author, and I'm going to go into some further explanation with every one - so hang tight. Some of this I may have touched on in another post, but we're going to sort of dig into the pieces of work that really make a difference to me in terms of fiction and storytelling, and I may once again have to split the article in parts in order to make the article or articles a bit less cumbersome. The list is mostly in order from greatest importance to least, but not necessarily very strictly, so just hang on until I get around to the explanations. (Author's Note: I decided to make this post these opening paragraphs and the ordered list of author's and works only.)

So we'll do a nice simple, ordered list with at least one work after the author's name, and no more than three works after the author's name, and then we'll start hashing out the ins-and-outs of what I'm facing as storyteller, one big of my biggest problems being that I have a goal that is currently much bigger than I can solve. We'll get to all of that as we go down the list, and if we're looking at a good door-stop of an article, I'll split the article into parts in some fashion, and then people will find the connections according to the tags, or at least I hope they will.

1. Edgar Allan Poe, "The Black Cat"
2. Michael Ende, "The Neverending Story"
3. Clive Barker, "Imajica," and "Galilee"
4. The Nag Hammadi Codices
5. Ancient Mythology, in particular Sumerian Mythology
6. John Milton's, "Paradise Lost"
7. H.P. Lovecraft, I'll explain that a bit more later, as I want to talk about more than three works, most of whose titles I've been unable to locate, but whose synopses I remember.
8. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, "Test of the Twins"-Trilogy and "The Death Gate Cycle."
9. The Myst Video Game Series, I've never checked out the novels.
10. Michael Moorcock's, "Elric of Melnibone"
11. Frank Herbert's, "Dune"
12. William Gibson's, "Burning Chrome"
13. Jeff Noon's, "Vurt"
14. J.R.R. Tolkien's, "The Silmarillion"
15. C.S. Lewis, "The Chronicles of Narnia," and "The Silent Planet Trilogy"
16. Octavia E. Butler's, "Lillith's Children"
17. Anne Rice's, "Interview With the Vampire"
18. Stephen King's, "Pet Semetary," and "The Shining"
19. Samuel R. Delaney's, "Dhalgren"
20. Grimm's Fairy Tales
21. Aesop's Fables
22. The Bible, particularly the Old Testament, I read out of the Oxford Annotated NRSV

That is what is coming to my mind at this point, and if I think of anything else, I'll make a second ordered list article. Part 2 will arrive shortly, after I take yet another break.