I would like to bring you the gift of love and new worlds to brighten your life. I hope this post helps.
There are good plays, movies and television stories which touch us and make us care. Still, I find that even those which touched me the most deeply, do so superficially compared to what a well written book achieves.
In books, the characters I come to know, despite any description supplied by the author, are mainly fleshed out by my own mind. The worlds described, they take form within the magical kingdom of my own imagination and I end up becoming a part of their lives.
Some writers are a bit verbose. Others are stingy and count their words. It does not matter. I can make a story of half a page or a novel of ten thousand pages a part of my dreams. I can make friends (and rarely, find someone worth hating - in a slightly abstract way, as I am not good at hating).
Thanks to (thousands of) books - how rich my living has been throughout this timeline allotted to me!
I would love to think of all of you, above and beyond the experience of your own world and life, also sharing and living in those worlds that appeal to your own literary interests.
My interests lie mostly within the Science Fiction and Fantasy fields, with the odd comedy or love story - or poetry, colouring my journey through life, allowing me to live thousands of other lives and all over the galaxy, within this short life of mine. The Classics, as they are often called, I have read a number of them and learnt from the writers and marvelled at their ability to tell us a story with meaning, but the truth is, those are not the stories that left a mark on me, that set my inner world afire, sparking my ability to imagine, to be fascinated, to light me up with the excitement of new worlds.
It may be that I am more immature than I like to think I am...but that is me.
If you have not tried it and you face a number of winter evenings on your own, get some books, switch off your smartphone and get ready to explore and be amazed. Here are a few authors I think will open your eyes to the beauty and excitement of travelling in the worlds of our imagination:
Ann McCaffrey - start with her stories about the dragons of Pern (she has inspired me with her ideas and filled my heart with people to love)
Janny Wurtz
Katharine Kerr
David Brin
Ursula Le Guin
L E Modesitt
Isobelle Carmody
Lois McMaster Bujold
Mercedes Lackey
......and so on
The list is literally endless and I have left out the names of those who are ranked as being at the head of their genre, for I would rather steer you in less familiar directions, where you will experience moments of delight and and those rare 'a-ha' moments of finding for yourself new ideas that change the meaning of life - while also helping you meet a great number of people you will love.
PS: I wish I could have included in the above my name and my book of Cherine, but though she and her family have filled my mind and heart for twenty years, my writing is not good enough to deserve being showcased among such Masters of the Word. What I would suggest, for those of you on this platform of Hive, take the time to read some of the writings of our own writer worthy of note: @johnjgeddes
Have a good life
Alex
20th September, 2020