ON BOOKS AND PERCEPTION:

This past Sunday, I started reading a book by Terry Goodkind called "Wizard's First Rule." The book, as you may imagine, is a fantasy novel, set in a universe with magic, swords, and (duh) wizards.

It took me a long time to try fantasy novels. I had no problem admitting my love for science fiction - some of the first "real" novels I read included The Ring of Charon, its sequel The Shattered Sphere, both by Roger Macbride Allen, and then Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, which REALLY started my love of science fiction novels.

I don't know why science fiction and fantasy novels are kept together at bookstores. I guess the corporate explanation would be that the type of person who reads one also reads the other. That a certain "type" of person enjoys "those kind" of stories. In the foreword (afterword? The book is at my parents' house) to his book Tailchaser's Song, Tad Williams talked about the surprising amount of overlap between fantasy novel enthusiasts and cat owners (hence the popularity of his fantasy novel told from the point of view of a cat). So if there's an overlap there, maybe there's also an overlap with sci-fi...I don't know. I'm sure some marketing people have done a lot of expensive studies to prove it. (Note: Robert Heinlein also has a science fiction novel titled The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.)

Digression aside, it took me a long time to dip my toe into the waters of fantasy novels. Sure, I enjoyed Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon, but that didn't make me a fantasy nerd. But as I plowed through more and more science fiction (and contemporary fiction, and young adult fiction), I began to crave something more. A story that would go on. Something epic.

Well, Robert Jordan had a series of books (The Wheel of Time) that seemed long, so I started reading at book one. Some twelve thousand pages later, my definition of "epic" had been fulfilled - and there's still one book to go (although with Robert Jordan's passing, Brandon Sanderson will be filling in for the last book, which has me a little worried). So since THEN, I've been trying to read other "epic" series - stuff by Kate Elliot, Terry Brooks, Stephen Donaldson, and now these Goodkind books - and it just happens that a lot of these are set in the sword-magic-and-wizard world. Which is fine.

Look, it also took me a long time to admit that I enjoy Iron Maiden's music. Just because there's a certain "type" of person who listens to Iron Maiden and I don't necessarily want to be considered that "type." Well, I no longer care. I don't have to be that type to enjoy Iron Maiden, and I don't have to be that type to enjoy fantasy novels.

Although I am starting to fit the fantasy novel enthusiast type...if I have to move back in with my mom, watch out.