Reading has always been a joy of mine. I mostly like to read Fantasy or Science Fiction. Other books are not that bad but mainly I want atleast some hi-tech stuff in it. I do have a bad tendency to jump from book to book. Sometimes I will have an itch re-read a series or book, and jsut stop right in the middle of the current one I am at and start another, and then maybe just lose interest in reading for a time and not touch a book for a month or more. The last problem has seemed to remedied itself since I graduated but only time will tell.

Early Years

My father started me on this. Read me and my brother The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I later read it my self when I was in 5th grade. I later tried to read the Lord of the Rings, but only got about half way thourgh the second book before I just lost total hope. (It was a little above my head at the time). I then turned my attetions to a different series my Marget Weis and Tracy Hickman. It was DragonLance. I absolutly loved both Chronicles, and Test of The Twins trilogies. I read about every book in that series, until they started to put out the Meeting Sextet and the Companions series. I hated all the contradictions that I keep seeing. I gave up and only other book I read from DragonLance since was the conclusion Dragons of Summer Flame. Unfortunely that did not kill the series as I hoped it would. My main complant was it seemed that half the books were about the companoins. The first books that were not about them like the one about ???? (That one knight guy that had Kaz as a friend) was good, but the world seemed either to small, or not interesting enough to support other books.

I also fell in love with the Forgotten Realms line off books also published by TSR. The first series I read in that was the Moonshea?? trilogy, followed by the Icewind Dale Trilogy. I started to goble up every book out of the Forgotten Realms line. The Forgotten Realms world seemed to be able to support a lot more stories then the DragonLance one, but in time I slowely lost interest.

The first non-Tolkien or non-TSR books that I read was by David Eddings. I really liked the Belgariad, and the later the Mallorean series. I also though the Ellerian?? trilogy was good, but the follow up trilogy I thought was appaling. I hate with a passion authors that contradict themselves. Belgarth the Soceror was decent but not one I would recogmend, but if your bored go for it. As for Polgara. I could not bring myself to get through it. It was absolutly horrible. It seemed like Polgara (as in Belgarath) new exactly what they were supposed to do and nothing was ever a challenge. Oh well unless it is a brand new series that has nothing to do with his other books then I might pick it up, otherwise forget it.

Science Fiction Introduced

I was first introduced to Science Fiction around the 7th grade, because my mother was kinda worried about me reading only fantasy stuff, so when she mentioned this I grabbed the first thing off the shelf at Hastings that looked kinda neat. I just happened to be Robotech. I had never actually the cartoon so I just thought it was a book series. I gobbled up and end up reading one or two of those little books a day. I still to this day like hte books, better then the cartoons, but that is how I am with most books. I then turned to the Shadowrun series. It had the best of both worlds Sci-Fi and Fantasy. I also got into the Battletech book series. The majority of my high school reading was mainly just mainstream RPG based novels in both Fantasy and Sci-Fi. I never really wanted to have to think to hard. I just wanted to read.

Every thing changed when I decided to read Frank Hurbet's Dune. I had watched the movie many of times and I loved it, so I decided to give the book a try. I really enjoyed the book. I then went on to read the other six in that series. It seemed the first two books were his best. The second two was great also, nut not quite as good, and then the third two books started to get kinda wierd with all of his sex control stuff. About the only other Sci-Fi books I have read has been a Mars colonization series: Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars, I can not remeber the author.

Other Readings

Before I started to read Hurbet I had decided to read some of Micheal Chriton. I picked up Jurasic Park, because I had missed it in the theater and wanted to read it. I then watched the movie and was horrified. The movie just plan sucked compared to the book. The same thing happened with Sphere. Luckly I watched Congo before I read it so the movie was not totaly runied. Another author I read was some of Anne Rice. I liked Interview With the Vampire, so I bought the book. The book was nothing like the movie. It had so much more. One author that I want to start to get into is Tom Clancy. I have only read Net Force, and my uncle tells me that anything thar Clancy does with another author is not as good as his other works. I still liked it though. I really want to start with the first book in that whole twisted series. I think that Hunt for Red October was the first, but if I am wrong please email to tell which one was.

Recent Readings

I found an old Anne McCafry book setting on my bookshelf at home, and since I had nothing better to do I started to read it. I really go into the book, and promptly had to go to Hastings to get the next book. While I was there I decided to splurg and pick up a couple of other books. I picked up the next Pern book, and another that had just short stories in it. I also got another copy of Vampire: Lestat (since I could not find my old on), and I a whim I picked up Wizards First Rule by Terry Goodkind. I read the Pern book, then I decided I wanted to try The Goodkind book. I was mezmerized by it. I keept staying up late to read it. I then found myself going to either Hastings or Walden's to get the next book. I tore through that one almost as fast. I then bought and finished the third book. Unfortounetly I could not find the fourth book intown, so I had to turn my new kindled spark for reading towards something else.

I was surfing the web one day and I noticed that someone was complaing about Goodkind's book resemebled Robert Jordan to closly. I had picked up The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan about eight years prior and tore through that one and the next book (The Great Hunt), but I lost interest and never picked up Dragon Reborn. Anyways I went home and picked up The Eye of the World and started to re-read it since I had forgotten most of the details (and some of the main points). Currently I am on the Great Hunt, and just recently ordered both The Great Hunt, and Dragon Reborn in hardback, since I picked up books 6 and 7 (The Crown of Swords and ????) in hardback for less then the paperbacks cost.

Unfortountly I have been hearing complants about both Jordan and Goodkind kinda just milking the cow for all it's worth. I love to have long series, but it actually surprised me that Goodkind had another book past four. I was hoping he sould sum it all up and be done, but nope he has five and aparently at least one more to come after that. I just do not think that he can keep up the store, unless he just keeps throwing total catastrophes at the end of each book. (We just saved the world ... But... you released a Demon because of it, and it will now destroy the world unless you [Richard] stop it.) I have only read two books of Jordan's so maybe he can construct it so that the books flow together better, instead of something new every time, but if he makes them flow to good then it might seem that he will never end the damn series.