A Fictional Life: Part I - Humble Beginnings

In your life, if you are a reader (and if you aren't, then shame on you), there will be novels that affect you in ways beyond just an entertaining way to pass the time.  Literature CAN change lives, and for the better.  There is a story embedded in every reader's reading life.  It is the story of their journey through literature, or perhaps, more aptly, the story of literature's journey through their life.  For some people this story is a complex and winding tale.  For others, it is a simple journey along a single path.  My story is the former...an odd journey that has taken me through many different genres, authors, and fads.  It is a wonderful story...

In the 1970s, Folgers offered a promotion where you would receive a free copy of Treasure Island with the purchase of a 2 lb can of coffee.  My dad read the book aloud to me, and it made an impression.  Like all boys, I longed for an adventurous life.  Jim Hawkins' fit the bill.  I wondered if I could be as still as a mouse while hiding in the apple barrel, a treasonous plot unfolding a few feet away.  The moral ambiguity of Long John Silver may have been a bit over my head as a young boy, but his menace was easily detectable.  My reading journey had begun.

When I was in elementary school, I loved comic books.  Yes, I did read actual books as well, but mostly non-fiction.  But then, when I was about 13, I heard people talk about this guy named Tom Clancy.  He wrote novels about the thing that most fascinated me:  War.  So, I acquired a copy of a book called Red Storm Rising.



The hyper-realistic, technically-correct, and riveting battle action of this book made me want to read more.  This led me to other Tom Clancy books, and I devoured them all throughout junior high and high school.  In fact, I became a fan of the entire techno-thriller genre.  [As an aside, I should say that military techno-thriller began to die after the end of the Cold War.  It is a shadow of its former self]

My other passion during my teenage years was Star Trek novels; in particular, The Lost Years by J.M. Dillard.  Let me tell you, there are a lot of Star Trek novels.  Some were good, some not-so-good.  But it kept me reading and eventually opened the door to more substantive "speculative fiction".  [I hesitate to throw around the term "more substantive" when it comes to genre fiction, since this implies that it is somehow inferior to "literary fiction", which I believe is poppycock.]

TO BE CONTINUED...