It’s the Friday Group Therapy.
1. What was the first book that you remember reading? It was a book about Popeye that Mom would read me. She would follow along, pointing at the words as she read. One day I took the book to her and did the same thing. It’s been reading-reading-reading ever since.
2. Tell us about the best book that you ever read. No can do. I have hundreds of books. Many of them are most excellent. Many of them have resonated with me in a variety of ways at the time I read them.
3. Tell us about the worst book that you ever read. Doomstar, by Richard S. Meyer. This book convinced me that, if I put my mind to it, I could become a published author, because it was so godawfully written, and so poorly edited, then even on a bad day I could do better than it. It was the first book I ever owned that I threw away.
4. What genre of books do you find yourself most drawn to? SF/Fantasy, of course. Mystery/noir, too, at least in measured doses (Parker, Rucka, Stout, Gardner). I also enjoy True Crime tales.
5. What genre of books do you avoid? Romance novels, whether bodice-rippers or “legit” best-sellers. Most hard-tech thrillers (of the Clancy sort). Westerns.
6. Do you have a favorite author? What draws you to this person’s work? A favorite author? Yeesh. If pressed (i.e., “whose body of work would you most want to have with you on a desert island” sort of thing), probably Robert Heinlein. Imaginative, witty, bawdy, dramatic, heroic stuff.
7. Have you ever written anything? If so, tell us about your writing. If not, have you ever wanted to? Yes. I did the NaNoWriMo last year, and I have a novel that’s been waiting the Last, Great Edit on it for about a decade. Both works were rather juvenile genre fiction, not worth publishing, but fun to write and share with my friends.