A "Hi!" from a UK idiot.....(*grins...*)

Greetings, guys.

Well, I MUST be an idiot. I can't remember how, but somehow or other I found myself reading Stoker's famous original back in the early 70s - just started at secondary school. It was a public school, complete with boarding houses and all the other associated crap that went with it (my old man's idea. Not mine!)

A kid there was into writing his own sci-fi horror stories.....at the tender age of just 11. Had notepads, jotters and excercise books brim-full of the most weird and wonderful scribblings imaginable. I read a few - crazy stuff, really - and during my teens began diving into Tolkien, Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, Alan Garner's 'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, etc; you name it, I couldn't get enough of it. I then turned my attention to Lovecraft's stuff, including, naturally, the Cthulhu Mythos. Clark Ashton Smith got quite a bit of attention, too. In later life, reading became something of a luxury - we all get that spell when real life pushes personal interests onto the back burner, don't we? - sometimes it lasts for years. I was well into my late 40s when I first came across the wonderful world of Sunside/Starside in our local library, populated by the Travellers and a whole menagerie of the most unbelievably fantastical "monsters".

Heh. I was HOOKED! (I was also into Biggles, and that kind of thing - Joe 90, Captain Scarlett, Thunderbirds......even Rawhide! - so I did read relatively "normal" boy's stuff, too. I learnt to read very early in life - I think I was reading the Ladybird primers at the age of 3 or so, and I became the biggest bookworm you have ever seen!)

My only issue these days is finding the time to actually sit down and read the things through from start to finish. I've treated myself to copies of almost all Brian's books off eBay, but although I'll sit down & read a chunk, I never go back to the same place the next time. Consequently, I'm getting a very disjointed view of the entire time-line.....

Amazing stuff though.

Mike. 😉