[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: favorite science fiction/fantasy authors - what are yours?

[Lee Storm (God Is The Healing Force)]

[Carol]:
| I've tried other scifi or fantasy authors and 
| just can't get caught up in their worlds or their writing, 
| possibly because I don't care to think about the future and 
| am intrigued by the real past (historical and prehistoric). 
| For me the great mystery of all time is how and when we 
| became human (how could something like homo habilis evolve into *us*?)

[Lee]:
But not all SciFi and Fantasy deals with the future.  Look at things like
Diane Duane's Young Wizard series; it's in the present or nearly present
time with everyday-like people who do, as part of their covert work,
interact with beings from other worlds.  Personally, I never got turned on
by history; perhaps it was because I had dull teachers, I don't know.  But,
to me, the past is the past and I let those who are historian-types try to
unravel it. <Smile>
| 
[Carol]:
| So let me turn the tables a bit and ask the rest of you: Why 
| read scifi or fantasy or both? What's the attraction of those 
| genres, and do you prefer one over the other?

[Lee]:
That depends.  SciFi doesn't have to be about the future; I enjoy the type
that takes me to other worlds, but I don't like the really dark kind.  I
appreciate hope and seek books with characters that bring kindness and hope
in some way to the story.

In Fantasy, we can look at a world that is and yet is not our own.  In the
HP books, we have our known world, but there's a whole lot more happening in
it than the average Muggle realizes. <Smile>  Same with the Young Wizard
books.

In the Lloyd Alexander and LOTR books, the world we see may or may not be
part of ours, hidden by magic from the rest of the world, etc.

In the Narnia books, we have our world interfacing with another completely
different one, with doorways between the two.

I read to escape the bad news of the present, so to speak.  I want my books
to transport me to places that are different and may be better, and they may
be worse, but there's some character to make things better.  I want my books
to stimulate my imagination, entertain me, and show me different ways of
thinking, trying to see us humans through the eyes of someone from another
world, or a dragon, or whatever.

That's my two knuts' worth.  Some may think I'm weird, but I know I am.
<Smile>

Cheers,

Lee :-)