You can’t have a hitchhiking jag without talking about Douglas Adams, right? Of course, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy travels an altogether different kind of road. It may be time to revisit these travels because right now, the only rules I halfway remember are carrying a towel and humoring a Vogon about his poetry.
My first […]
I had a special yellow library card when I was growing up that only allowed me to check out books from the young adult section. There was a whole world of books in that library, but beyond the kid stuff, I only had access to one lonely bookcase from Judy Blume to Paul Zindell, one long […]
The Blood of the Templar is not so much a road trip book as historical fiction with a fantastical twist, but there’s a long journey from the holy lands to Paris then London and back again. It even opens with a chase scene.
The Knights Templar have long been a subject for conspiracy theorists and lovers of […]
My first introduction to Tom Robbins was through his book Skinny Legs and All, and it changed my life, taking me on a very unexpected journey and giving me a direction to follow for years to come.
Tom Robbins set me free. I figured, if he can give a bunch of inaminate objects personalities and purpose […]
Some people like to read more into the Middle-Earth tales than the author intended. They like to think that Lord of the Rings was about the evils of industrialism, just because the bad guys ripped up a few trees.
Well, in the spirit of reading more into something than was intended by the author, let’s talk […]
We’ve been skirting around Middle Earth for the past three weeks, and we’ve finally arrived. J.R.R. Tolkien took the stories of the mythical ring and turned them into a whole new genre of literature.
Like many fantasy adventure books, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings include maps to help you with your journey. And while […]
The badger thought he would be defeated by a big burly blonde German warrior, not nerdy little Malcolm Fisher in his beat-up car. He really was Expecting Someone Taller.
Tom Holt brings the cursed Rhine gold ring to modern-day England by way of Ingolf the giant, disguised as a lowly badger to escape the greedy hands […]
If you want to immerse yourself in the Norse myths, Thorarinn Gunnarson can take you travelling on the wings of valkyries, soaring from the heavens to the tree that gave birth to the gods on earth, to the Rhine river and beyond. His novels Song of the Dwarves and Revenge of the Valkyrie are a […]
From Avalon in the British isles, we travel across the North Sea to enter the mainland via the Rhine River. The river has a rich and magical history, whose mythologies gave birth to modern day fantasy fiction. If Middle Earth were a real place, this is where it would be.
Stephan Grundy’s Rhinegold takes us back […]
In Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Forest House, mushrooms are the drug of choice. In her poisoned haze, the high priestess can see the past, the future and the present. Like the Druids, San Francisco’s youth are also famed for their appreciation of hallucinogens, even if they do lack the sensibility and spirituality of Avalon’s priestesses.
In […]