When I was a kid, I spent one summer vacation reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy out in the woods. I was eleven years old and it was a magical three months. Every morning I’d get up, eat breakfast, and then grab my paperback (they were the old Ballantine editions from the 1970s) and head outside. Pennsylvania has always been heavily wooded (indeed, the name literally means ‘Penn’s Woods’) and some parts still are. But back then, the coverage was heavier here in Central PA. We hadn’t yet cut half of the forests down to make room for Panera Breads and Wal Marts and housing developments for people to sleep in when not commuting to Baltimore or Philadelphia. There were areas around my childhood home where you could walk through forests all day and never encounter a single living person.
Reading fantasy in the woods is one of the best things. For me it was the Wheel of Time series. I lived along a river and small mountainside as a kid, and would spend hours reading about Rand, Mat and the thousands of others in Robert Jordan's epic.
Ya know, I've still yet to read those. Devoured LOTR, the Shannara books, and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant as a kid (along with all the Conan and Tarzan paperbacks) but never got to Wheel of Time. I should try them one of these days.
Thank you for the updated "A day in the life" report. Really interesting.
Coincidentally, as if passing along that magic, every book of your's that I've listened to has been in the woods, hiking. Horror and fantasy are begrudging cousins. Hopefully I can pay it forward as well pretty soon. Magic needs to be shared or it withers and dies.
Reading fantasy in the woods is one of the best things. For me it was the Wheel of Time series. I lived along a river and small mountainside as a kid, and would spend hours reading about Rand, Mat and the thousands of others in Robert Jordan's epic.
Ya know, I've still yet to read those. Devoured LOTR, the Shannara books, and The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant as a kid (along with all the Conan and Tarzan paperbacks) but never got to Wheel of Time. I should try them one of these days.
Thank you for the updated "A day in the life" report. Really interesting.
Coincidentally, as if passing along that magic, every book of your's that I've listened to has been in the woods, hiking. Horror and fantasy are begrudging cousins. Hopefully I can pay it forward as well pretty soon. Magic needs to be shared or it withers and dies.
That's awesome. ;-)