Lost in time

I spent my weekend immersed in a fictional landscape… A universe, at that, so compelling that it’s a little difficult to tune back in to the silly annoying details that make up my life. A large part of my brain is currently in Italy in the year 1634, going through adventures with the intrepid characters of a small town from contemporary small-town America that somehow landed in the middle of Germany of the Thirty Years War…

You can read the first two novels for free (1632 and 1633), and by then you’ll probably be hooked like I am. (Well, assuming that you like alternate history / sci-fi. It is something of a niche genre (if you know nothing about history or don’t care about it, then it might just seem boring). It reminds me of something that I’ve missed for a long time–the sheer scope and enjoyability of reading a new series by a good author, and immersing your imagination into a new world that stretches your mind.

TV (somehow) never really makes my brain work that hard. Imagine that! I suppose, with the writers’ strike going on as it has been, and plans for a spring season overwhelmed by reality shows, I might just have to get used to this whole reading thing. I’ve gotten out of the habit of consuming books, because it’s been too hard to find books that I really like. I read some chick-lit because it’s light and fun, but it’s about as taxing on the imagination as is a standard TV show. Which is to say, not very.

And while I always used to love the sci-fi and fantasy genres, it seems that much of fantasy has been hijacked by “dark” writers who dwell on vampires and off-norm sexual practices and incest and all that which is (and probably should continue to be) hidden and taboo. While the first few vampire novels I read were interesting and, indeed, a novelty, once it became a formula of its own it ceased to be appealing. I reached a point where I realized I didn’t care to fill my head up with stuff that I found revolting.

Sci-fi… On the other hand, sci-fi has always been a little hit-or-miss for me. I get bored by a lot of it, especially when it’s of the “galactic adventurer” variety and involves almost a Western-in-space theme to it. They get too weird when they’re set too far in the future (IMHO) to follow easily, and besides, the part that I really like is the world-building. (Which is what I used to enjoy in fantasy, until they got too sidetracked on incest and gore.) I like the “soft sciences”, I guess, the questions about how it would affect people if the world was like this or if that happened to them. Even more engineering questions appeal to me, like “how could an Average Joe/Jane from now manage to rebuild X technology if transplanted into Y type of world?” (Which is what you find in this time-travel themed novel such as the ones I’ve been reading.)

I’m not sure if I’ll find a good answer–I’ll happen upon good authors every now and then and inhale everything that they’ve written, then go through more dry spells until I find someone else to read, I guess. That’s how it has worked up to now…