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"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."
-Tycho, at Penny Arcade
Yeah, let that roll around in your head for a little bit. It's really as simple and beautiful as that, isn't it?
I see a bookshelf, filled with different books from different authors, all acting as portals to different worlds and different times. The author may give them birth, but it's the readers who keep them alive.
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These are the stories Wil loves to tell, because they are the closest to his heart: stories about being a huge geek, passing his geeky hobbies and values along to his own children, and vividly painting what it meant to grow up in the ’70s and come of age in the ’80s as part of the video game/D&D/BBS/Star Wars figures generation.
And that, in itself, what you wrote, is just as deep as the quote. See, Wil...you gots the tools, man.
And I'm a poet and didn't know it.
Posted by:camias designs | March 06, 2008 at 02:14 PM
Hmm... Postnasal Philosophising!!
Should be more of it.
The mind and the imagination of the mind is an amazing universe in itself.
Posted by:lindsay | March 06, 2008 at 03:03 PM
The author may give them birth, but it's the readers who keep them alive.
I like that. And if you really think like that (a good way to think), you'd enjoy the Thursday Next series of books by Jasper Fforde. Trust me on this one.
WF
Posted by:Wes F in Cincinnati | March 06, 2008 at 03:38 PM
That's the entire premise of Heilein's Number of the Beast.
Posted by:LameLefty | March 06, 2008 at 03:56 PM
Dude.
Posted by:head.fairy | March 06, 2008 at 04:06 PM
Beautiful. This is going into my "inspiration" bookmarks.
Posted by:merindab | March 06, 2008 at 04:59 PM
So true! There are some books that I read over and over again just to go back into the universe it created. JRRT and Marion Zimmer Bradley gave me some awesome universes to explore.
Posted by:Celtic Mama | March 06, 2008 at 05:27 PM
And the most important of these is called the Dungeon Master's Guide.
Posted by:jdifran | March 06, 2008 at 05:51 PM
I believe Atrus called them Linking Books on Myst . . . ;-)
Posted by:SnowBear | March 06, 2008 at 07:04 PM
Oh! Your children are older, but I have two girls ages (almost 6) and 7 who are big fans of The Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osborne which is all about books which are literal portals to other worlds! The funnest twist is who made the books (hint: think Arthurian legends - but not the obvious guess).
Ok, so maybe *I* like them more than my kids do.. but I'm a sucker for childrens' fantasy stories.
Anyway, I can't recommend them highly enough to other people with early readers. If nothing else, it's a great way to teach about thematic metaphor :)
Posted by:Loopdilou | March 06, 2008 at 09:26 PM
I read that earlier on PA and it rang a deep chord of truth somewhere deep.
Posted by:eleventeen | March 06, 2008 at 09:30 PM
Wil,
So many great books and not enough time to read them all. So many great movies and not enough time to enjoy them all. So many great songs and not enough time to hear them all. I could go on and on. From a geological point of view we just do not live long enough.
FG
Posted by:FABIAN | March 06, 2008 at 09:30 PM
Sorry to go OT here but I have to ask Wil, if you got my email regarding my purchase of HDouL where paypal chose the wrong delivery address for me? It would be a shame if you sent the book to the wrong guy ;)
Posted by:Mconley | March 06, 2008 at 11:33 PM
Loopdilou, my kids LOVE those books. In fact, their school requires Afternoon on the Amazon for summer reading going in to 3rd grade. My 1st grader is in a reading group at lunch with her teacher and they are reading the whole series. I'm a sucker for Arthurian legends, so the Morgan Le Fay angle really made me get my kids into them. My 11 year old loved them when he was younger. Especially the ones with Merlin.
Posted by:Celtic Mama | March 07, 2008 at 05:54 AM
Did you see xkcd today? Pretty good. :)
Posted by:gbina | March 07, 2008 at 07:29 AM
And some of those books with their machinery and story engines...
Start the engines in other authors.
Posted by:Cinexploits | March 07, 2008 at 08:26 AM
Right on, Wil. My hubby is a very intelligent man, but just doesn't like reading. I'll never understand that... I love losing myself in a good book, as does my sister. Celtic Mama- JRRT for sure! :) Haven't read these in a while, but I also loved the series by Madeleine L'Engle that begins with A Wrinkle In Time. Anybody else? They made a TV movie about it a few years ago- it was *horrible*. If you saw that, but didn't read the book, forget what you saw and go read.
-Alicia
allywag67@aol.com
www.thewagband.com
Posted by:Alicia | March 07, 2008 at 08:38 AM
To Wil,
Off topic, but important.
I finally am going to Creaion Vegas con. I know its a con you regulalrly show up at. PLEASE say you're returning this year.
Posted by:Glenn Curry | March 07, 2008 at 09:49 AM
have you ever read Derrida or deMan? We're going through poststructuralism/ deconstruction, and that is a very poststructuralist quote. What's really fun is to apply that stuff to law-- por ejemplo, constitutional interpretation.
Posted by:housecat4ever | March 07, 2008 at 10:34 PM
You're right, that's a truth beautifully put.
Have you read Tolkien's essay "On Fairy Stories"?
Posted by:scionofgrace | March 12, 2008 at 06:59 PM