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“LANGUAGE IS A VIRUS FROM OUTER SPACE...”
— WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS

“...THE SELF, WHICH USUALLY EXPERIENCES ITSELF AS LIVING NOWHERE,
IS SURPRISED TO FIND THAT IT LIVES SOMEWHERE...”
— WALKER PERCY

“WORDS ARE, OF COURSE, THE MOST POWERFUL DRUG USED BY MANKIND...”
— RUDYARD KIPLING

When I was a child, my grandfather had a copy of The Hobbit on his shelf, and my father read it to me as a series of bedtime stories when I was little more than a hobbit myself. And so began a fascination with the lands of Middle-Earth that continues to this day. I have seen all of the movies, from the Rankin-Bass 'Hobbit' and 'Return of the King' to the Ralph Bakshi 'Lord of the Rings' (which I now have on DVD and inflict on my own children regularly) to the recent Oscar-winning films. Others certainly have more fanaticism for the subject than I do (I refuse to be fanatical about anything), but none have more respect for it. Above are just three links regarding The Man and His Works, among a vast multitude.

Arguably my favorite author. When I was a wee lad of about 10 (so that would be circa 1980), my uncle gave me a collection of her novels as a gift (Christmas, birthday, whatever): Sunfall, Hestia, Serpent's Reach, Pride of Chanur and Gate of Ivrel. To this day, I still have that set, and it continues to be an inspiration. I have had hit and miss experiences with her other novels (the Chanur Saga is wonderful; the Morgaine Saga features my two favorite characters in all of literature; the Foreigner Series is superb; but some of her other novels I haven't been able to get into or haven't had enough time for), but she has my enduring respect and love for putting me on a path that I have never regretted and always enjoyed.

More years ago than I care to count, I started work on a novel (The War of the Wolf Moon) that was supposed to have been a quick formulaic sword-and-sorcery tale that I could (it was hoped) sell quickly and jumpstart a writing career. This novel remains unfinished today, largely due to my discovery of the internet in general and Wikipedia in particular. I got it into my head that a world needs a history (curses to Tolkien on this point), so I started researching historical examples of cultures that I wanted to include in the world where the novel takes place. Most of those cultures were only intended to be peripheral to the story of the novel, throw-away references in dialog and such. But then I found Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia with over 50000 articles. Want a list of all the rulers of the Persian Empire from before the reign of Xerxes up to the rise of the Islamic Empire? No problem. Want biographical details of most of those rulers as well? But of course. Roman Governors of Britain? Sure, fries and a Coke with that? And thus did I get carried away into world-building. Someday, you might actually even get to read about this world...

sffworld.com is one of the worlds largest SF, Fantasy and Horror communities on the net today with tens of thousands of pages with reviews, interviews, articles and much much more...

Main features of this site include a symbolism dictionary and an online library containing the full text of many science fiction and fantasy works. A great place to find the stories that they don't sell in the stores anymore.