I love to read. I’m guessing you do too, or you wouldn’t be at Novelspot. Reading is natural for me, like eating or breathing. It’s a workout for my mind. Some books seed new paths of thought that I might never have cultivated had I not encountered them. I use the word encountered because books are like people to me, each with its own personality, driving force and hidden meaning. I don’t read books so much as meet them, befriend them and spend time with them. I enjoy their company. I like to think they’d enjoy mine, too.

I love reading (and writing) books that make me think. I’m constantly finding new ideas, new ways to think about things hidden (and sometimes no-so-hidden) within the boundaries of each story. Nothing thrills me more than to have an entirely new set of ideas to play with. Often I’m still thinking about these side passages long after I’ve finished a book.

Robert Ludlum got me thinking about conspiracies on a grand scale. The Count of Monte Cristo was my first story about revenge. Jurassic Park made me consider ramifications of cloning that had never before crossed my mind. And in years gone by, I’ve trusted books like Illusions, the Eternity Brigade, Tower of Glass and City to lead me down interesting side passages.

Illusions by Richard Bach (not to be confused with Richard Bachman, one of Stephen King’s pen names) is one of my favorite books. I’d have trouble placing it in a genre, but it’s as philosophically fun as any book I’ve read, and helped forge, long ago, part of my world perspective.

The Eternity Brigade taught me about war, politics, career soldiers and unexpected futures. Stephen Goldin (whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with at length), helped me see war and the army in completely different ways.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, one of the first “grown-up” books I’d read, showed me what can be done with the right amount of determination, and that sometimes, justice can prevail, even if you have to jump through hoops to bring it about.

Robert Silverberg’s Tower of Glass, taught me that androids have rights too, even if we created them. It got me thinking about responsibility to our fellow creatures and how sometimes our xenophobic nature isn’t very humane, even if it is human.

City is a fantastic book of future history by Clifford Simak, in a world where only sentient dogs are left, retelling legends of the long departed humans. Written as a scholarly text, this book taught me that the long perspective of history is not only slanted, but often completely wrong.

Jurassic Park, unlike the movie, combines cloning, mathematics, philosophy and morality into a twisted tale that couldn’t have been written by anyone but Michael Crichton. The strident desire of a man to be remembered by being the first to bring back the dinosaurs, the greed of investors who see only the bottom line, down to the mathematician Ian Malcolm to counterpoint ethically the greed aspect of the book. Simply fantastic. To me, Ian Malcom makes the book. He is the one who sees clearly, beyond the notions of profit or notoriety.

And what can I say about Robert Ludlum? Here’s a guy who took me all over the world, gave me so many ideas on how life might be completely different. I visited more countries in his books than I can ever hope to see in real life. And I felt like I was there, watching with wide eyes the poor protagonist, who was always in over his head.

In my previous list, I left out Roger Zelazny, my favorite author of all time, and Parke Godwin who penned one of my favorite books. No, they are not for this article. There is too much to say about both of those men, as there is too much to say about Jack Chalker, who has a style all his own.

Each future issue of Side Passages will be a guided tour down the corridors of my mind, an intimate look at how I see the world, and how the books I’ve read, or am currently reading, have opened up new passages that I’ve never before traversed.

I hope you can join me on this special journey, and too, hope you find many side passages of your own, as enthralling and thought-provoking as the ones I’ve stumbled across.