Sorry, my nerd is showing. . .

I read a lot of fantasy books.  I feel with that confession this should be at a meeting.  Anyway, I read a lot period but most of the literature happens to be fantasy books.  Bought two this weekend even from the used bookstore downtown.  One from a favorite author I've read only a little by, Raymond E. Feist, and the other by George Lucas and Christ Claremont.  I mean a book written by the minds behind Star Wars and X-Men?  Umm. . . okay.  Absolutely.  Done and done even.

Well, I started escape reading in high school.  Really taking off after I took a copy of Robert Jordan's Eye of the World from the laundry room in the dorms of Northern Arizona University at the end of music camp.  (It was left there for over a week thank you!  How dare you and your assumptions.)  Before the books was a long career of RPGs that occupied my youth, that one starting with the Final Fantasy 3 (originally 6).  Needless to say my childhood and even my present. . . hood. . . is filled with goblin raids and all sorts of creatures.  Most likely where my own book idea had drew breath.  Lord knows how many pages I've consumed and how many hours have been found with a book in my hand.  Big escapist.

There was one thing that I found myself particularly jealous of.  I mean besides magic and adventures of course.  That was there is usually some physical problem.  Some bad guy.  If there was a goblin, most likely it was evil and you stabbed it with a sword.  There was a tangible enemy that was identifiable and in a lot of cases easy to pick out.  Cave troll.  Boom, eats babies, you and your three best friends, or not best friends, have to kill it.  Enemy horde?  The community has to band together and have to fight together to survive.  Granted I'm a rather big fan of indoor plumbing and running water, but having an enemy to fight would really help people find purpose in their life.

Yes I know, tons of hardships that are often left out.  Cold, blisters, finding yourself on a goblin cookfire,  no Del Taco, ending up a mere peasant with a piece of metal to defend yourself though you're arrow fodder. . .  But training maritally to protect yourself from an orc raid?  That's a purpose.  All in all I think I was mainly unsuccessful at getting my point across. . .

With that said I'll leave you with something shiny: