[Cadfael]

Gratch, don't worry... I like Goodkind as well, good to have an ally at last... now lets go and get them!!!

[BehemothCat]

Hi all, I'm from Washington DC and have just returned from BaltiCon 35 - my first Con, despite being a longtime sf/fantasy reader. It was quite fun - met some authors, got a stack of new books, and had a great time. A couple of them I can't help but gloat over - a 1899 first edition of The Enchanted Type-Writer by John Kendrick Bangs, and The Marvellous Land of Snergs by E. A. Wyke-Smith. Smergs was much admired by Tolkien, who called it "an unconscious source-book for the Hobbits". Who knows when I'll get to them though, as I have more than 1000 books on my to-read bookcases. I seem to have a bit of a compulsion! http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif

First book - hard to say - maybe Baum's Oz or Silverberg's Revolt on Alpha C. Been reading mostly sf/fantasy ever since grade school. My sf/fantasy split is about 60/40, and, although I'm pretty catholic in my tastes, I especially like literary, comic, and edgy books.

Skoal!


[This message has been edited by BehemothCat (edited May 28, 2001).]

[tamlyn]

my names tamlyn-as you can see, i'm fifteen, live in bridgetown in western australia. Tiny place, been told it's pretty, also been told it's the most boring place ever. i wouldn't know-i spend too much time in other worlds.
my first book was in year 5,6 or 7 and considering the size of that library i won't be too hard pressed to remember what. i think it was a book called The Steps up the Chimney or something like that. i read the rest of the series and then some joel rosenberg and judith tarr.
i've always been hooked by fantasy but then was when i really started reading.
Also i'm actually a picses and they're supposed to be really into supernatural stuff. i've also noticed fantasy readers tend to go for mystery if they leave the genre. anyway got to cut this short - i'm supposed to be drying dishes.

[Caly]

OK, I finally decided to add my two cents to this thread, even though I can't imagine anyone will be reading this far down. Maybe I'll be surprised though.

My real name is Carrie, but I go by Caleyna in the cyberworld. I'm 27 and just finished my third and final year as a high school English teacher. I am very interested in getting my master's in library science, but that's on hold for now. As soon as I get a residency permit I am moving from Oregon, USA to northern Sweden. Why make such a move? For a wonderful, sweet, perfect man. Yes, I am deeply, deeply in love with a very silly Swede. He will be here in 6 hours for a three week visit, so I am getting very antsy at this moment.

Fantasy. Well, when I was a kid I read everything I could get my hands on, but I had no particular love of fantasy. The only fantasy I really remember is Chronicles of Narnia. When I was 16 my best friend convinced me to read the Empire series and I LOVED it. I just never pursued anything else in the fantasy vein. When I graduated college the same best friend got me hooked on WoT. Atm I am not really a WOT fan, but at the time it seemed great. I got addicted to a WoT message board, and then when some troubles hit that board and I wanted my own place to ramble I started my own board. To attract the people I wanted to talk to I decided to name it the Fantasy Freaks Forum, even though I had only read about four fantasy series. The Forum grew, and now I read a lot of fantasy just to catch up. The forum actually is about much more than fantasy--it's about people and their lives, but now I am a fantasy addict anyway. I also read lots of mystery type books (Koontz is my fave), and some "regular" fiction. Amy Tan is probably one of my faves from that category. All time favorite book has to be To Kill a Mockingbird. It is a perfect piece of literature. I dislike a lot of "regular" fiction b/c it seems like it is always depressing, but there are some gems out there. I just really like books where the good guy wins.

I guess I am a late bloomer since I didn't really start reading fantasy a lot until I was about 24 or 25. I kind of skipped a lot of the books that people read in their teens like Eddings, Brooks, Dragonlance, etc. I've read a lot of books that are specifically YA, and really enjoy them, but missed some that are for adults but that are read in the early stages of fantasy. If that makes any sense. I don't know if it does. I guess I was always a little leary of fantasy b/c it seemed like only geeky boys read it. Now I realize that is not ture, but there is still that perception out there. You know, that reminds me. . .a long time ago I wrote an article for this site about that very topic. I wonder if it is still up. I'll have to check that out.

Caleyna the Longwinded

[tamlyn]

you're becoming an english teacher! are you crazy!
never mind, i've only got my own english teacher to judge on and considering he teaches all the year tens english, well i can't say i blame him for being totally freaked. never mind.

[Caly]

No, no no! I was an English teacher for the past three years and I just quit. I *hated* the job with a passion. I liked most of the kids, but I hated dealing with parents, admin stuff, and state law. Also, I hated the fact that 98% of kids hate reading and do nothing but complain when you make them read a book. . . and they don't actually read the book. Anyway, I would highly recommend that everyone stay far away from the teaching profession. I had a horrible experience with it.

Caleyna www.fantasyfreaks.org (http://www.fantasyfreaks.org)

[Winterland]

Well this is an interesting post...

Nice to see Fantasy lovers of the world all offering up a "Hail, and well met!"

I'm 30 years old living in Colorado USA. The first fantasy I ever read... hmmm... there were those choose your own adventures, read a few... but my first true forray into the realm of Fantasy was "Pawn of Prophecy" book one of the Belgariad by Eddings.

I've been having fantasy books for breakfast ever since.

At the ripe age of 14 I began to write Fantasy. The first book of my series came out in January this year - "Awareness: Book I of Mindsight". There is an interview, excerpt from Awareness and other things here at sffworld about the book - check them out http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/wink.gif

Also feel free to check out my own site at www.mindsightseries.com (http://www.mindsightseries.com) if you like.

Nice to meet you all (well, I confess I couldn't get through all the pages in truth).

[Canaris]

37 (!! Bags me) . Live in Vienna /Austria Self Employed.

Lets be honest boys and girls. We feel a bit stupid now and again , when we explain to other people what we read . Don’t we. I for one feel quite stupid now and again. Telling myself. Come on boy, pick up Goethe again.

I do have periods when the fantasy comes out of my ears, and than 2 years might go by, before a pick up a book again.

The reason why I do feel a bit silly sometimes , is that are quite a few really crappy writers around. I just read this Sparhawk thing by Eddings. Finished the first book (Stupid me I bought the second as well , so read that as well, and did feel like some retarded idiot not willing to accept life as it is.


But than again, you sometimes come up with an author , and does take you away. The last book I read was Enders Shadow ( SciFy really) did not sleep all Sunday night and was therefore wracked. But I had to finish it. That’s the days when I think. Sot them all. I read what I wanne read. Who cares when people think its funny. I crush them all the same when I am doing business with them :-)

[Madrak]

My name is Marc, I'm 29 and from Ontario, Canada. My first fantasy novel was likely The Indian in the Cupboard. I moved on to read a whole pile of Hardy Boys books and eventually picked up a strange looking book (based solely on the cover art) called the Courts of Chaos. I had unknowingly picked up the eighth (i think) book of the Amber series. I have since read the entire Amber collection, and my favorite character from this series has to be Mandor.

A couple of the coolest books I own include:

- Autographed hard cover copy of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
- Several dogeared copies of kids books by Gordor Korman. What makes these interesting is that my grandmother knew the author and maganed to get copies for me usually a couple of months before they were available in stores.

[This message has been edited by Madrak (edited June 27, 2001).]

[Yan Silversword]

Well I'm Ilian from Bulgaria and I'm 20.
My first fantasy book was The Hobbit(I was 6 when I first read it) followed by LOTR(several years later), Shannara and Earthsea Quartet and many other books. Now I'm reading the Death Gate Cycle by Weis and Hickman and like it very much...
And why fantasy? Well perhaps because it's the best way to get out of this world and visit places far more beautiful than any other... And because I'm writing(or at least trying to write) fantasy..