What is your relationship with ‘the printed word’? Let me share mine.
When I was a little kid, I fell in love with books. What I liked most was opening the cover and falling, like Alice, into a world different from my own. I searched for clues and solved mysteries with Sherlock Holmes. I invented amazing devices and foiled evil plots with Tom Swift, Jr. Each story and novel I read transported me somewhere new.
As I grew older, my love of books grew, and so did my love of strange new worlds. Some of those worlds were ours in another time; others were darker corners of our here and now, places where villans lurked and tough men and women fought to help those who needed help. Some of the worlds I most adored were ones that did not exist but that just possibly might one day come to be: a myriad of futures for our planet, and new planets far beyond our own. I particularly liked what I later learned were future histories, collections of books and stories set in a common universe that you could at least pretend could exist someday.
The above paragraphs tell my story, yet were not written by or about me. When I first read them I actually got a little misty eyed thinking: “Wow! Somebody else gets it.” I have never heard another person share feelings the same as my own.
The words were the beginning of the Introduction titled Welcome To A Future in the omnibus, Jump Gate Twist by Mark L. Van Name. I realized just how much we had in common when I saw his dedication of the book. He wrote,
To my mother, Nancy Livingston
Who gave me so very much,
including a love of books.
Thanks Mom!
