june 2021

Summer is Here...sort of

Here we are, the first day of June and the heat has struck. This is the first clear morning that has had a temperature above 5 degrees Celsius into the double digits. June is an important month for me, and not because I am a June Cancer or moon child, but because it is the middle of the year, a time to see how this year is progressing. I guess it is now pretty obvious why I chose that phrase for the name of a character and a fantasy novel series. Normally, as an extremely reserved person I would not even hint at the month of my birth, but I have started to wonder if anyone ever reads these posts anyway. There have never been any comments, which is the primary reason for my doubt.

I recently decided to revisit the books of some of the authors who inspired my decision to become a writer. I could not help noticing that there emerged a sort-of pattern. As a person who grew up in the eighties I began reading proper novels when an alarming tendency for gratuitous swearing started to appear in "serious" fiction. The four main influences in my reading choices, J.R.R Tolkien, Andre Norton, Alan Dean Foster, and Anne McCaffery were all primarily free of swearing just for the sake of swearing. I say primarily as Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger books did have a couple of foul-mouthed characters who  swore quite a bit throughout the series, but his other books were not prone to such characters. I appreciated that especially as I was nine years old when I first read one of his books and fell in love with a certain red-headed boy and his flying snake. If anyone who might read this has not read Mr. Foster's Flinx and Pip books then I heartily recommend they should. Even when I find Mr. Foster's subject matter a bit too dark to handle I still cannot put the books down. I don't know about his film adaptations as those depend heavily on the screenplay and I have read very few of them. I've always found that his original books are leagues ahead, something I am currently enjoying right now as I happily re-read my way through his Humanx Commonwealth  novels, most of which I have managed to collect in both hardcover and softcover. I always save Flinx for last as he is my favourite of Mr. Foster's creations, closely followed by one of Flinx's associates: a certain female insectoid that I adore.  

I hope there are a few people out there who may read this post and possibly even agree with me about the under-appreciated genius of Mr. Alan Dean Foster. I had planned a bit of a rant in this post, but I seem to have gotten sidetracked. Somehow, I think that is a good thing, as I would much rather rave about a favoured and much beloved influence on my life and career choice than complain about something I can't change such as my mother's health problems or the fact that this is not a good world for someone of diminutive stature, one who has to wear high heels to hit five feet in height. I don't want to end up like one of the characters in the Foster novel I just finished reading again. If anything can kick me out of a bad mood Alan Dean Foster's writing can. If you haven't read any of his original books the I heartily recommend that you find some.