At the end of the film The Time Machine, Filby and the Housekeeper realise that three books are missing from the shelf.�� They have been taken into the future!

There���s a scheme by Porcupine Books at the next Eastercon for people to give a short talk on a book that has influenced them.�� I���m one of the writers due to whiffle on about a book, but not one of the following three.

A friend of mine gave me three books for my sorry, birthday.�� They were The Mortdecai Trilogy by Kyril Bonfiglioli, Einstein���s Monsters by Martin Amis (for the essay Thinkability) and Who Will Remember the People by Jean Raspail.�� The three books that influenced his life.

What are these books for me, I wonder.

I think they are The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, Introduction to Pascal (Second Edition) by Jim Welsh and John Elder and Let���s Get Digital by David Gaughran.�� It���s rather an odd collection now I write it down.

The Day of the Triffids is also rather a stand-in.�� I could have chosen The Chrysalides, also by Wyndham, or any number of others.�� I trying to recall that book that got me into Science Fiction, but I���m not sure I remember it or that there even was one.�� I wish there was one, but there really isn���t.�� It might be one of the Target Doctor Who books.�� The Hitch-Hiker���s Guide to the Galaxy came much later and I���m a fan of the radio (and perhaps a theatre) version.�� Telly with Doctor Who and Blake���s 7.�� It���s all a bit rubbish compared to those who say The Lord of the Rings changed my life.

On the other hand, Introduction to Pascal was the manual of a life change.�� I went to University to do Civil Engineering – mad idea, what was I thinking – and I realised my enormous mistake about four weeks into the course.�� Somewhere I have the very fluid mechanics test that left me high and dry, and pushed me over the edge and into deep water – as it were.�� I turned the page over and made notes on the back as I went through the University prospectus to find an alternative course, any alternative course.�� So, after Anthropology, Astrology, Astronomy, Biology and Carpentry had all turned me down, Computer Science was next in the alphabet.�� They accepted me on a Friday to start the following Monday.�� I was four weeks behind, I panicked.�� (As it turned out I was further behind in Civil Engineering than I was in Computer Science, but I didn���t realise that at the time.)�� I bought the only book on the recommended reading list that I���d been told about and I read it cover-to-cover – twice.�� I didn���t think I followed it at all.�� During the first workshop on programming, we were given twelve questions and I was hopelessly stuck on Question 6.�� You can���t turn a computer round and make notes on the back about Cover Design, Drama, Education or English Language.�� (As if I���d do any of those.)�� Oh god, I thought, I have just wasted my life.

I turned to one of my brand new colleagues and whispered, ���I���m stuck on Question 6 – help!���

���What!��� they replied, ���but we���re all stuck on Question 2.���

I love programming in Pascal, still do, even though it���s now hidden in an IDE called Lazarus.

Let���s Get Digital by David Gaughran did change my life.�� I wanted to know where I was academically with writing, so I did the MA at Birmingham City University.�� I sort of walked it, but then I had been doing all the modules on an ad hoc basis over and over for the past dozen years.�� I wish I���d not done the intensive version and spread it out over two years, because I enjoyed it so much and it would have been nice to appreciate the scenery during the journey.�� I even snuck into film course I wasn���t doing run by Andy Conway.�� (It���s his book I���ll be whiffling about at Eastercon.)�� We got chatting, I started to give him lifts home and he said I should self-publish.

���Oh, but isn���t that vanity publishing.���

���No, not at all, read this ebook by David Gaughran.���

So I did.�� Interesting, I thought.�� By page 5, I thought I must get a Kindle one day; by page 10, it was on my Christmas list; by page 15, I���d ordered one and by page 20, I was coding in html.�� My conversation from occasional playwright to committed indie publisher was faster than someone with a road map to Damascus asking for a bit of light to read by.

Would I take these three books off to the future with me?

Probably not, because I���ve read them.

A Kindle can contain more books than you can read in a lifetime, so, if you could only take three books to the future, surely you���d choose a Kindle and… two other Kindles.

You know, perhaps I should have added the first novel I published to this list of books that changed my life, but it���s kind of cheating.�� Or should it be the first one I completed? ��To steal and paraphrase an anecdote from Peter Ustinov, the favourite book of my own is, of course, the next one.�� (Actually, it���s not as it���s being a bit awkward.)

And your three books?