Ritual of the Stones

Another Introduction from Me. (Jackie Slaney)

Rob, very kindly asked me to contribute again to his blog, which I am more than happy to do.

But in between thinking about what books I have read recently and what one to write about first, I suddenly found myself in a discussion in the office about books people read and explaining why I enjoy fantasy books so much.

It was a very bizarre conversation, as at the start one of the people was quite dismissive, personally its never bothered me what people read, and I would certainly never dream of saying that one genre is better than another.

Nowadays I read nearly anything, from Sci-Fi/fantasy to ancient Rome, from zombie books to murder mysteries, but I will admit that I became quite defensive over the whole “fantasy books are just fancy comics comments.”

I will not go in to detail, but the person concerned quickly regretted his words!

The conversation though, (especially after the doubter was silenced) became quite in depth and when I was asked, ‘well why did you start reading sci-fi/fantasy then?’ has made me think.

Why did I start reading that genre when most of my friends at the time were not reading much or reading very girly books?

I suppose I can say I was lucky in a way being the youngest in a household, which meant there were always books lying around that family members had read and just then left, the majority of which were casts off from my brother.

This meant that I came across Star Trek, Arthur C Clarke and Robert Heinlein at quite a young age, these books along with Tolkien caught my imagination and led me to our local library, where I was extremely lucky as the lady librarian in charge didn’t dismiss a small girls strange book requests, and even used to find books for me and put them to one side.

To this day, Antonia Barber, Susan Cooper and Alan Garner are just a few of the authors whose books I read that I still remember now.

I was also lucky as I grew older with various English teachers at school encouraging my reading and also starting my interest in writing as well.

So why did I start reading these? The honest answer is that they were so well written, and so imaginative how could anyone not like them? They were escapes from the humdrum and boring, and now with various hospital visits, I still find it the same.

Though I read loads more different types of books now, I still find myself looking at the fantasy sections first in any bookshop.

So apologies to all, as this was supposed to be a review about a book that I had read, but turned in to something else all together, but I suppose in a way its a review of the fantasy books I have enjoyed over the years.

That reminds me, I must really find that Antonia Barber book I had, I have a sudden need to reread it again.