I saw Alex Wolfe answering these questions and I thought I’d give them a go! I even wrote an early draft by hand before transferring them to digital for some final edits.
Feel free to reply to these as well, I would love to read your answers in the comments or on your own blogpost, send me a link if you do.
What is your favourite genre?
Science Fiction no doubt! Pretty much the only thing I read outside detective stories (like once a year), literary classics (which usually overlap with detective stories or science fiction), and manga.
Who is your favourite author in this genre?
This has to go to the one and only Jules Verne. His stories were the first contact I had with the genre and pretty much inspired me to pursue my engineering career—I want to be as clever as Cyrus Smith when I grow up.
Over time however, I’ve come to discover a lot more authors like Brian W. Aldiss or Arthur C. Clarke, and the modern works of James S.A. Corey and Dennis E. Taylor, it was hard to go with them though, since I can’t deny who has had the biggest impact on my life.
What is it about the genre that keeps pulling you back?
The variety, the possibilities, the way in which stories can both celebrate the progress of humankind at the same time it can warn and predicts how that progress can come at a cost.
Another aspect I love is how no matter how much we know, nature and the cosmos always have more surprises waiting for us. From the Maelstrom to the Protomolecule.
What is the book that started your love of this genre?
I would have to point to an abridged version of Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, which was on the 2008 edition of Español Lecturas for the 3rd grade at my primary school.
The is a book which came bundled with other works for education purposes, which the government provided to public schools at the time, the artwork included in those readings to accompany the words is still ingrained in my memory. You can freely access this book online!
If you had to recommend at least one book from your favourite genre to a non-reader/someone looking to start reading that genre, what book would you choose and why?
A great, modern starting point may be something like the Bobiverse series, which are about a guy who gets resurrected as an AI in the future, tasked with exploring the galaxy, as he’s put in charge of a Von Neumann probe. It has some great science, but it’s funny and full of geeky stuff I really enjoyed.
Why do you read?
Because it is fun! To explore so many possibilities, futures and what-if scenarios. Visualizing all of it in my head, just the power of the mind picturing the impossible, or what could be. I probably could go further but honestly I just love to be immersed in the words, living lives and visiting places I could never do otherwise, it’s cool stuff.
But well, that’s it! Not a very long post perhaps, but I actually had a lot of fun looking back and trying to recall how I got into it, discovering all my primary school books are available online was definitely the highlight of my day too.
