Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella) debt to Christopher Isherwood, one of his mentors, in creating the character of Holly Golightly: ""Breakfast at Tiffany's" is in many ways Capote's personal crystallization of Isherwood's Sally Bowles." Truman Capote's aunt, Marie Rudisill notes that Holly is a kindred spirit of Miss Lily Jane Bobbit, the central character of his short story "Children on Their Birthdays". She observes that both characters are "unattached, unconventional wanderers, dreamers in pursuit of some ideal of happiness." Capote himself acknowledged that Golightly was the favorite of his characters. The novella's prose style prompted Norman Mailer to call Capote "the most perfect writer of
Tin Soldier (novella) "Eyes of Amber and Other Stories": According to Joan Vinge, "Tin Soldier" had two primary inspirations. The first was the song "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" by the band Looking Glass which had been a "Billboard" Hot 100 #1 hit in 1972, shortly before Vinge wrote the story. The second, as the title suggests, was Hans Christian Andersen's short story "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" and its tale of a crippled toy soldier who falls in love with a paper ballerina. Vinge commented: Tin Soldier (novella) "Tin Soldier" is a 17,500-word science fiction novella by American writer Joan D. Vinge, her