Nancy's Musings

I dumped my imaginary boyfriend when I turned sixteen so I might try some real ones. They've all been spent now, and find myself regretting him more than any of them. I stopped writing to my imaginary penpal when I began to feel that God might be saddened that I would choose to make someone up rather than speak my worries to Him. I sit at this laptop in an old roommate's scrubs, watching a BBC Victorian Drama. I don't want to be the clever heroine. I don't want to be loved by the brooding, but handsome hero. I don't want to jump into the roiling fantasy adventure I returned to the library this morning at sunrise. I never want to meet anyone who smells that bad. I have inevitably found my reality preferable to the cynical realism my imagination imbues other people's fantasies. I had a third imaginary friend, and we used to speak. He was something, and sometime, between boyfriend and penpal. We would hold long conversations. I would supply his lines, speaking as i...

My little brother says he doesn't ever want to get married because he doesn't want to ruin his life. This is the same brother who almost didn't graduate High School, dropped out of Dixie college, and shouldn't legally be trusted with a car or a cell phone. Normally I would ignore his idiocy, but something else has occurred which makes me wish to articulate my perspective. I received a phonecall from a mission companion whose adoration of her district leader was thwarted (perhaps too strongly) by our mission president. The former district leader had contacted her recently (both are now married; he lives in Australia and she in Phoenix) and they had both expressed their regret that neither had been allowed to honestly express their blossoming affections. She then went on to tell me how much she truly loves her husband but. . . Everything after that conjunction was bad news. So her husband doesn't buy her pearls. So his children are scary-expensive. So my parents would...

Generally, the reading public calls any book with unrealistic or formulaic plots "escapist" fiction, but I use the term to mean fiction in which the character leaves our mundane reality for one in which other laws besides physics apply. Five of the most popular authors along this vein are Stephen Donaldson, Alan Dean Foster, Jack L. Chalker, Piers Anthony, and R.A. Salvatore. Stephen Donaldson takes my breath away with his poetic descriptions and deeply human characters. He published an anthology of his own favorite short stories (called Strange Dreams , and a MUST READ for anyone interested), several of which made me laugh, cry, or both. His great escapist character was Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, a leper from our world and time who finds that the loam of the other world to which he travels will temporarily cure him. Most know Alan Dean Foster as an unbelievably prolific author of humorous science fiction. He also published a series (in the seventies?) called Spellsinger...

Today's foray explores urban fantasy. There's something fascinating about magic in the city simply because civilization is so complex there will always be a place for the unexpected, and the unnatural hopefulness of man imagines that maybe the unexpected could be for the better. Charles deLint writes the most breathtaking images of the enchantment in city life. I admit that I haven't read all of his books, but I began with a collection of stories called Dreams Underfoot sometime in High School, and some of the images stayed with me, as well as several of the words. So I loved the book so much I asked my little sister to read it, and she loved it too, except that there were too many swearwords, so as a favor, so she wouldn't miss the wonder of the book, I whited out every swearword in her copy, and the most explicit sex scene as well. You can't search an entire book looking for swearwords without getting them into your head, so for several months after that I swore ...