National SF/F Day: Thank you

As mentioned before, today is the grassroots National SF/F Day (a la a twitter thread from clarkesworld, originally from rolanni).

I’d like to start by thanking Arthur C. Clarke. I believe Clarke’s Rendevous with Rama was one of the first adult SF books I ever read (circa 1984), and it certainly left an impression. I then took a step back and started reading some more age appropriate books (I was 9 at the time), in particular H .M. Hoover and Susan Cooper.

Eventually, on a long and more than sultry summer afternoon (yes, I remember it that distinctly), I picked up my copy of Foundation by Isaac Asimov. I’d tried to read it before and found it boring. This time, though, it was like every switch in my brain was aligned perfectly. I devoured it. Along with everything else published in the series, then I moved into the robot books.

I’ve been a consistent and constant reader for a large portion of my life, so listing every author in the interim for a thank you would be a little hard. I would like to add, though, a thank you to Pat Rothfuss for his book The Name of the Wind. I was just easing myself into trying fantasy again for the first time in a long time (remember when Jordan’s Wheel of Time was advertised as a trilogy? I do.) Rothfuss was a great read that left me not only wanting more, but wanting to do the same. Since that book, I’ve been devouring R. Scott Bakker, Joe Abercrombie, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Steven Erikson, to list but a few. I still read SciFi on occasion – I love me a good Vernor Vinge or Alastair Reynolds, for example, and John Scalzi and Tobias Bucknell are awesome.

So to all those that I’ve listed, and the countless others that have kept me up at night, filled a void, or otherwise inspired me – thank you. Thank you very much.