01 December 2008

Escaping Into Worlds of Fantasy

Chello!


Lately, I've been reading Elizabeth Moon's "Vatta's War" series...well, technically I'm only on the second book. She writes excellent Science Fiction and the fact the protagonist is female is a refreshing change-of-pace. Ky Vatta is a believable, three-dimensional heroine who manages to pull off the impossible, but when she does, it doesn't seem improbable. In fact, the reader goes, "Whew!" with her at the conclusion of a crisis (at least, I do any way).

However, my first love is Fantasy rather than Science Fiction, probably fueled by the fact that I watched the Hobbit and The Return of the King (the Rankin-Bass cartoons) as a child (I was 9 or 10 at the time). In the sixth grade I went on to read Tolkien's Silmarillion before ever reading The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.

For Christmas, 1981, I persuaded an aunt to buy me TSR's "Gamma World" RPG for Christmas. One of friends managed to score the Moldvey edition of "Dungeons and Dragons" and we were off! Mutants and vibro swords on one side, mages and magic on the other.

(A note about the Gamma World setting...it is self-described as "Science Fantasy." If you have ever seen the Heavy Metal movie/cartoon or Thundarr the Barbarian, you have a pretty good grasp of what GW is like.)

Well, I guess I posted all that to say that I've been a gamer almost 27 years now. The worlds that we create in our imaginations and by the playing of games at our dining room tables sometimes seem as real as a well-written story...or even a history. So what if that makes me a geek? Personally, I don't have the time to run around and judge others for their failings and idiosyncrasies, so why do they judge mine?

Until next time,

Tony

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