I love to read. But not just anything. Most books really are boring.  Sci-fi/ fantasy mainly.  That would be opposed to erotic fantasy, though I like that too... arrrgghhh... ooo, yeah... a little to the left... huh?  What was that?  Oh, oh, sorry.  You didn't hear that.  Look into my eyes and repeat after me, that - never - happened.
     Ok, now where was I?  Oh yeah, I think I have to blame this one on my brother.  He gave me two books when I was younger.  One was The Secret of Terror Castle, which was an Alfred Hitchcock murder-mystery book for young kids.  Not only was it intriguing, but I think it captured me with that suspenseful, eerie nature that's prone to most mystery books.  Still, I think the real excitement was in that special means by which a book can transport you to another world and bring it to life in ways that you didn't think were possible.  Somewhere along the line, though, I realized two things: one, I really wasn't a detective.  Though I did love to solve puzzles, I just don't think that I was observant enough to notice those finer details.  That was the part about mysteries which never really interested me.  Hey, I'm no Sherlock Holmes.  And two, I had outgrown those books.  After all, they really were childrens books.  And even though I could still have been considered a child, the vocabulary itself became too basic, and the puzzles too easy to solve.  I was expanding my knowledge and the books I was reading just weren't involved enough for me.  I tried reading the adult mystery books, but for some reason, they just weren't as exciting as the ones I was used to.  They were dry, bland, with little action or drama to fill the voids between the clues and killings.  I craved more.
     That's about the time my brother gave me the second book, one which he had just finished reading himself.  It was a Dragonlance novel.  The first one in fact: Dragons of Autumn Twilight.   At first, I didn't know what to think.  I mean, by my standards, this book was HUGE!  I had never read anything over, I don't know, 150 pages, and this one was like 350 some-odd pages long.  Not only that, but it was of a genre I had never touched before.  When I went to the school library, I always went immediately to the mystery section.  Of course, that would now change to the fantasy non-fiction.  Once again, not the erotic fantasy section (that wouldn't come until later... no pun intended).  After I finally finished the book, I was fascinated.  No, I was hooked, lusting after anything and everything Dragonlance.  Oddly enough, I would not read the Lord of the Rings until years later, but after Dragonlance, even that paled in comparison.  The Wheel of Time, Forgotten Realms, the Sword of Truth.  When I wasn't reading comic books, I was salivating over some fantastical trilogy.  Hey, don't laugh, you can find a lot of good stories in comic books.  Unlike some books, I don't just look at them for the pictures, wink, wink.  Though I still read other books on occasion, nothing is as exciting as knights and dragons and faraway lands of adventure and political intrigue.  Ah, but alas, it is not reality.  I don't think I would mind living in a time like that, though.  Magic, swordplay, camping out under the stars... death, mayhem, wiping your behind with the nearest available leaf.  Ahhh, that would be the life.  Yeah, I could do that.

     And the best book and author award goes to --- drum roll please --- Dragonlance.  Weis & Hickman.  Best book ever.  Best writers ever.  Heroes, knights, magic... J.R.R. Tolkien, I love ya, but eat your heart out.  This is excitement.