I started reading science fiction and fantasy (SF&F) when I was around 12. I was a lonely geek living in a home environment that was an odd combination of austerity and neglect. Books were escapism, an alternate universe where good could triumph over evil. Some of the authors I read gave me great inspiration, both to struggle forward, and later, to try my own hand at writing.
While my writing is unlikely to ever be read widely, like many writers, both published and unpublished, I feel a need to show my gratitude and respect to those authors who stirred my creative juices and encouraged me to put pen to paper. So, here are a few of my favorites:
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- Andre Norton, the Grande Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy—for her young adult stories that opened the door to SF&F for me, especially her special mix of magic and technology in the Witch World series.
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- Anne McCaffrey, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master—for her stories of Pern that gave me dragons who could teleport and lost colonies that had forgotten their origins.
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- Vonda McIntyre, science fiction author and geneticist—for my first introduction to adult science fiction when I read her early novel Dreamsnake, which intertwined genetic engineering, a healer’s ethics, and a dystopic earth into a Hugo and Nebula award winning story; and for her many Star Trek novels.
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- Patricia A. McKillip, “one of the most accomplished prose stylists in the fantasy genre”—for harpers, shape-shifters, mythology, symbolism, and a style of prose that was almost poetry.
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- Ursula Le Guin, the “greatest American writer of her generation”—for turning my view of the universe inside out and upside down, and introducing me to hermaphrodites, social anarchism, and the art of world building.
and not to be forgotten:
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- J.R.R. Tolkien, the “father” of modern fantasy literature—for giving fresh life to ancient Celtic and Norse mythology—bringing me “legends” of elves, dwarves, wizards, and the evil creatures they must defeat—and showing me how to construct a language for my own stories
They are all gone now, but my gratitude remains for the universes they have created … and the dreams that those universes inspired, giving me some stories of my own to write.