The tree needs more Christmas presents

I lay awake last night considering Christmas gifts for my grandchildren. My wife and I had purchased the big items and they sat wrapped under our little tree. “Little” is a 5 foot artificial one we bought when the living room became too small for the big tree. Big screen televisions and new furniture shrunk the room. *The little tree looks great decked out with decorations collected over 42 years and buried under wrapped Christmas presents.*

The brain was on auto considering and rejecting many possibilities. Out of the deepest, darkest recesses of a writer’s mind came the idea for presents almost every child under 20 dread – books! Didn’t I enjoy reading as a child? Wouldn’t they enjoy the option to read instead of watching television and playing video games? Of course they would!

Living in fantasy worlds

Riding the edge of nocturnal peace, I hopped back to when I was my oldest grandson’s age. That was the year I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series and I was hooked.  I wanted to find a way to Mars but only reached it through John Carter. I shared this desire under the stars with my best friend as we camped out.

I burned through Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and lost sleep after reading Something Wicked This Way Comes. The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and Isaac Azimov’s Foundation Series were some of the most expensive books I bought. *Well worth my yard work and babysitting money.*  E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman Series carried me through an interplanetary war and the conflict between super races. These and authors of the same ilk fed my imagination and solidified a love for reading.

Least you consider me lost in fantasy, I enjoyed reading other writers. Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, George Orwells’ 1984 and Animal Farm, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (started, never finished.) There were many others. But my first love was fantasy and science fiction.

Today’s adventure creators

Jump forward and I am adventuring with Daniel Arenson’s, Lindsay Buroker, David Dalglish, C. Greenwood, Craig Halloran, M.A. Nilles, R. A. Salvatore, Kelly Walker, Jeff Wheeler and more. Fortunately, not all adventures require swords, armor and magic. There are alternative worlds populated by writers I have read such as K.M. Weiland, Kassandra Lamb, Kait Nolan, and Marie Grace.

Fifty years of reading pleasure started with books available to me and read as a youngster. I bought some and received others as Christmas gifts. Perhaps gifts of books will start my grandchildren on a lifetime journey through worlds built by imagination.

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