Seven
I inherited my love of reading from one of my older brothers, and naturally – like a lot of boys – gravitated to the allure of fantasy. Reading The Lord of the Rings as a 12-year-old was as close to a divine experience as I’d ever had. It wasn’t just the story, although there’s enough in that to inspire awe and wonder. But what overwhelmed me more was the history this world contained – a history that spanned millennia and was imbued in every bit of geography, motivated every character, and contextualized every event. One of my issues with storytelling is when it feels like the story, or the world…
My Roots in Fantasy
I first read JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit in 1982 or so, and then The Lord of the Rings later that same year. The books speak of grand adventure, nobility, overwhelming evil, the hero’s journey (and, in these cases, the heroes are raging underdogs), and sacrifice, amongst many other things.. I have no idea why swords and medieval adventure appealed to me as a kid. Maybe it’s because of that grand adventure. But Tolkien’s work was brilliant not only for its scope, but the depth of its history. Here was a fully formed universe. Everywhere the characters went had history. The roots tracked back long before these particular stories began. I…