The Hardy Boys
Who doesn’t love a good mystery? I remember hiding under my blankets with a flashlight, reading the latest Hardy Boys book I managed to get my hands on. My parents never really had a problem with my reading habits, but I worried because they were usually adamant bedtime meant sleeping time.
However, I had to see what trouble Frank and Joe Hardy had gotten themselves into along with their friends Chet and Biff. As an elementary-aged student living in Chicago, I could not identify with their life in New England. I didn’t relate to their access to motorboats and cars and trains to get them at will from one location to the next.
I read it as pure escapism, taking me out of the gray, often dangerous existence of Chicago life in the late 1970s. It instilled in me a sense of adventure, a lure to see what happens around the next bend. Because of Frank and Joe, if I didn’t have a fresh book to read, I would turn my AM transistor radio to WMAQ and listen to mystery radio theater.
They still influence me today. I cannot recall the number of times the wife and I have been traveling to one family event or another and have received a phone call, asking if I was lost or just exploring again. Always the latter. To this day, I will see a road or path I’ve not taken and head to it without hesitation.
It probably is not a coincidence that my first published novel—A Silence in the Garden [soon to be re-released as Branches in the Window]—takes place in a 1920s mystery setting that could have stepped right into a Hardy Boys mystery. I haven’t read one in years, but many of them still occupy shelves in my library.
The Three Investigators
By sixth grade, I had moved on to the adventures of Jupiter Jones, Peter Crenshaw, and Bob Andrews—three young boys that investigated puzzling incidents in their southern California community.
I have always been a bit of an introvert—definitely not of the shy variety—and have always liked to have my own little space to escape to. It probably has its roots in my maternal grandfather’s den with his huge oak desk, chess table, book cases, and myriad of curiosities and puzzles.
The three young investigators, friends for life, lived in Southern California where it is hard to find a secluded place of your own. But Jupiter’s Uncle Titus had a junkyard where the boys operated out of a hidden travel trailer. It had secret entrances, a dark room, a lab, and a library.
As an adult, I have an office wherein I write. It is lined with books. The walls are covered with art. The shelves have trinkets from everywhere—a drum from Tahiti my father picked up while in the US Navy, a beer stein from Germany, clocks, cameras, a Chelsea F.C. replica surfboard I grabbed in Belize, and a whiteboard upon which I have my project list.
When my son was much younger, he came into my office (which I call a library) and said he loved discovering what interesting things I had in there. I am hoping that my grandchildren will one day also be amazed at the wonderful collections I have.
The Lord of the Rings
One of the books I found on my grandfather’s shelves was a little adventure set in a far-off place called the Shire by an English writer of the name J.R.R. Tolkien. My father retired from the US Navy, and we moved from Iceland to Northwest Arkansas, where I started the eighth grade at a new school in a new country.
I immediately escaped to the friendly confines of the library. Hiding on its shelves, I learned that Mr. Tolkien had written more books about the Shire. There began my love of the Lord of the Rings. It is among its pages where I may have first developed the conscious understanding that I wanted to be a writer. I knew I wanted to create something that resonated with readers.
I have not stopped enjoying the adventures of the hobbits and the fellowship. Often, I open its pages once every year, but I never go three years without escaping into Middle Earth.
Choose Your Own Adventure
What adventurous young person wouldn’t love to “choose your own adventure?” I know I did. The stories weren’t the greatest, but that isn’t what they were about. They were about it never being the same each time you opened the cover. That means a lot to a person that still likes to take the roads he’s never been down before.
I am going back to Iceland this year. More important than seeing the familiar things I knew as a child, my wife and I will be experiencing new adventures. Iceland has undoubtedly changed since I was last there. So, have I.
But to choose your own adventure…isn’t that what life is all about? I loved these books so much, that I looked for similar escapades beyond the official series. I found the Endless Quest books of Dungeons & Dragons. I played the game in high school and college. These books allowed me to play on my own without the need for others or a DM.
The State
The science fiction of Larry Niven provided me with many hours of exciting adventure. His stories took me to far-off places filled with stunning voyages through the depths of the universe. One of those places was the smoke ring, a torus of breathable atmosphere orbiting a neutron star.
This series really expanded my love for science fiction. It showed me that strange and unusual things happen among the stars. It opened my imagination to soar beyond this rock. What would happen to a society of humans that settled in an environment where they lived not on planets but among clumps of vegetation and giant trees?
What would happen? That is the true center of science fiction. And of course, since I like to explore those places I’ve never been before, I am going to naturally gravitate to science fiction. The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring are two books that I will re-visit and experience adventure anew each time.
Over the next few years, my own science fiction universe will be coming out: The Lonford Universe. It will focus on that same question: what would happen? It begins with Slipping the Cradle and will look at the possibilities of human cultural and political society once we start moving beyond the atmosphere of our tiny little rock floating on a remote arm of our insignificant galaxy.
These are all series that I enjoyed before I graduated high school. They influenced—and still do—my life and who I became as a person and as a writer.
What book or series really impacted you?
