Any Blade Will Do

As a much younger person, I used to read tons of fantasy/sci-fi novels. They were all thick tomes, the sort of paperback doorstoppers that are read mostly for the accomplishment of getting through 890 pages in a weekend. I cherished them. Where some had Game Boys, I foolishly chose the Game Gear, becoming another of the walking wounded in the First Console War. The damn thing could optimistically make it four hours on six batteries, and had an even more generously estimated six decent games to show for it. My Star Wars novels and Melanie Rawn softcovers were my only escape during a bus ride or lonely recess period.

During my later teenage years, I gave up reading for pleasure. Twofold explanation: 1.) I got a car and my idle time shrank. 2.) It's really hard to focus on a book when you're high. My excommunication ended a couple years ago, and I took the book back up, along with the bell and candle. Only now, there's a wrinkle: I can't read sci-fi or fantasy anymore. I worry that it's because I buck at the unashamed nerdiness necessary to read the genre. Not that I'd be afraid to read them in public, but in private.

The other truth is that I've learned a whole lot more about the craft of writing in the intervening period, and most of the dragon and robot reveries I read as a kid were not so good. Plots that were barely zapped in the microwave long enough to shake off their staleness. Characters with narrative arcs that could be predicted just by reading their names. Plots constituted of implausibilities stitched together by extremely convenient applications of magic/science. While the hackwork is enjoyable in the moment, I can't say that a single damn one of those books has really stayed with me.

So maybe that's the real answer: time. When I was young, I had the time and boredom to kill maybe a book a week. Now it takes me closer to a month to get through a book I really enjoy. As a result, I choose my targets much more carefully. Steak over popcorn. Don't take that statement as a condemnation of nerd lit to the dreaded Trashcan of the Low Arts; but I have a hard enough time finding books that truly excite me without limiting myself to a limited genre.