I’m a child of Star Wars. I saw the original trilogy in the theaters starting at age 7. I had so many action figures and toys. I had shirts and pajamas and lunch boxes. Shoe boxes full of trading cards, posters on my walls, and who knows what else. But what I wanted more than anything was MORE story. Before Timothy Zahn gave birth to the Star Wars Extended Universe in 1991 with his Heir To The Empire trilogy (the stories that SHOULD have been the third movie trilogy, IMO), there wasn’t much. There were some comic series but I wasn’t much of a comics kid. Around the time I saw The Empire Strikes Back, I discovered four books that would satiate my hunger for more story: Splinter of The Mind’s Eye and the original Han Solo Trilogy.
Alan Dean Foster (ghost writer of the Star Wars novelization) actually wrote Splinter to be a direct sequel to the original movie with the intention of being adapted as a low-budget movie sequel in case the original film was not successful enough to spawn the franchise it would ultimately go on to produce. It takes place two years after the original movie and gives us even more proof that George Lucas had no idea where his story was going (as he is so fond of claiming). It’s a good story, though. Not quite the sequel that Empire turned out to be but good, nonetheless.
The original Han Solo trilogy, officially titled The Han Solo Adventures, takes place in the two years leading up to the original movie. These are fantastic reads. The fact that they aren’t Star Wars canon now is criminal.
Growing up in Oklahoma, S.E. Hinton books are pretty much required reading. All of her books are set in Tulsa, Oklahoma where she resides to this day. I live in Tulsa now, too, but grew up about an hour north of here so proximity begat fondness for a lot of people not to mention she’s just a damn good writer. I first encountered The Outsiders in junior high. I read the book and saw the movie right around the same time and trust me…the book is better (as usual). I could definitely identify with the rivalry in the book except, in my town, it was east side/west side. People on the west side went to Central junior high and those of us on the east side went to Madison junior high. There were definite social and financial differences between the two sides and we’ll just leave it at that. I understood “turf” and protecting your neighborhood: some buddies and I got in a fight one summer day because another group of boys cornered us and told us it was their neighborhood now. A short conversation and a couple of bamboo sticks convinced them otherwise. Reading The Outsiders led to reading That Was Then, This Is Now which led to reading Rumble Fish. They were full of angst and violence and strained relationships. I found it all fascinating.
Ninth grade me had a huge crush on a tenth grader in my Biology class. She was blonde, cute and very flirty. So when I found out that she was a library aid during my lunch period it wasn’t uncommon for me to spend my lunch break in the library. On one of these lunch breaks, I was helping her re-shelve some books when I stumbled across Dogsbody by Diana Wynn Jones. The cover looked cool but what grabbed me was the summary on the back:
The Dog Star, Sirius, is tried for murder by his heavenly peers and found guilty. His sentence: to be reborn on Earth as a dog until such time as he carries out the seemingly impossible mission imposed on him. In his Earth guise, Sirius, truly lives a dog’s life. But the worldly obstacles he faces are minor when compared with his chilling encounters with the Dark Powers that are set against him. His quest seems hopeless until at last Sol, Moon, and Earth itself come to his aid.
I mean…you had me at “dark powers”, OK? I took it home with me that day. It was a little below my reading level so I burned through it in a couple of days. I loved it. I loved it so much I reread it a month or so later. It’s just a great story. And even though, at its core, it’s about a girl and her dog, it doesn’t get cutesy or sappy. It’s full of suspense and just the right amount of supernatural. I’m a little surprised it was never made into a movie. I bought a copy about ten years ago and keep meaning to reread it but just haven’t.
By the time I hit tenth grade, my penchant for reading had slowly been replaced with a new hobby: playing guitar. It’s all I did in my spare time and recreational reading fell by the wayside. However, I also developed a new friendship at the beginning of that school year with a guy named Mike. Mike and I bonded quickly over bands and TV shows and I started hanging out at his house after school pretty regularly. One day we were up in his bedroom and I saw this book laying on his nightstand, On A Pale Horse by Piers Anthony. I asked him about it and he said it was about a guy who inadvertently shoots Death (aka The Grim Reaper) and has to BECOME Death (sort of like a darker version of The Santa Clause). Mike told me it was book one in a five book series, that he was almost done with it and I was welcome to read it when he was finished. I took him up on it.
I loved it. It was a weird but entertaining read full of supernatural beings, magic, heaven and hell, God and Satan. I blew through it before Mike finished the second one so I went out and bought the rest of the set for myself. They all have the same premise: a mere mortal somehow taking the “office” of an incarnation. Bearing An Hourglass is about Time, With A Tangled Skein was about Fate, Wielding A Red Sword was about War and Being a Green Mother was about, you guessed it, Mother Nature. They were, by far, some of the most complex, esoteric, thought provoking books I had ever read at that point in my life. And remember I was a kid growing up in Southern Baptist church culture. These books were NOT in line with my beliefs at the time or the bible for that matter. My youth pastor certainly didn’t like me reading them. Mike and I talked about them extensively as we read through the series, though. Mike passed away several years ago and these books along with our discussions are one of the great memories I have of him.
Anybody else have any history with these books? I’d be shocked if anyone has heard of or read Dogsbody but I’m sure there are a few of you that have heard of Piers Anthony and even more read S.E. Hinton when you were younger.