The written word is a wonderful thing
I love reading. Before anime, there was something called a book, and in books, there were words which created new worlds and characters and stories. My favourite genre is science fiction, although as a child I read just about anything that I could get my hands on or showed up in our house, from Enid Blyton to the science of carbon-dating. Unfortunately, I never read the classics! So that’s a huge hole in my education. Nowadays, I like magazines, such as the Economist or Far Eastern Economic Review. Yeah, call me boring. I also read a ton of fanfiction, and I’m always searching for a new good sci-fi author.
I like a good writing style, imaginative worlds, sometimes good ol’ military SF, and I have a special penchant for superhuman kick-ass characters who aren’t cheapo knockoffs. These do not necessarily have to mix; in fact, it’s better if they stay separate.
When I read fanfiction, I tend to read based on couplings of my favourite characters. However, there are certain stories which bowl me over in their sheer magnitude and ambition. These I consider the unsung treasures of fiction, not an ounce less worthy than the bestsellers in the bookstore.
I think the Internet is the best thing that ever happened for a reader. There is suddenly a huge world of material available, where previously it required one to leap buildings and outrun trains to publish anything; now it’s freely posted and freely read. All you have to do is find it, and in a way that is part of the pleasure too, to find those hidden gems amidst all the crap. For someone with eclectic tastes like me, the Internet is heaven sent.
The most amazing thing is that whenever I think I’ve run out of stuff to read, that I’ve gone through it all and there’s no more, something new jumps out. Sure, it’s sad when your favourite authors stop writing and even worse when they do so in the middle of a story you’ve been following for years. But there are always going to be new ones, working on new material. I can’t believe how good some of this stuff is. And you know that it just gets better.
