Guilty Book Pleasures

As the summer of 1993 was winding down i found myself in the Waldorf Mall’s Walden books. I had decided that i was going to read something that was not written by Margret Weis or Tracey Hickman for the first time in what felt like forever. There I was 14 bored with 100% expendable income looking at the names of the books in all of their oddly designed glory and managing to skip all of the millions of Xanth novels to find the book pictured to the left.

When I pulled the book off the shelf two things jumped out at me. 1) Holy shit that is an awesome name! and 2) hey isn’t that the art from the Molly Hatchet albums? So since those two things where enough for any person to buy a book I didn’t even notice that it was book 3 of a series (i was a dumb 14). I remember very well jumping into it and tearing through the first few chapters. It was a very cool thing to me at the time, there was all sorts of adult themes in the first few chapters that I had never been able to read in books before. Sure the Dragonlance books had sex scenes in them but there where implied not straight up written out. There was also a great amount of drug use and a level of violence that I had only seen in movies Dad let me watch. I kept reading this book every night until the night before my first day of high school. I remember that night very well as the end of the book neared Shannon Hoon came over the radio telling me his life was pretty plain. There was something peaceful about that night.

I went back to Walden’s and bought the other three books int her series and devoured them in only the way a 14 year old geek could. There where adult and they where awesome.I also started to read abut the man who had paitned the covers and who the Death Dealer belonged Frank Frazetta. I tired to find posters of his so i could have them on my wall (as i did not have a van to air brush them onto) but never could find one.

Fast forward about 15 years and decided to re read them as an adult who had seen much more that the world had to offer. Guess what…those books i thought where awesome? yeah no so much. The writing was perfect for a kid who had not seen much and thought that there had to be some sort of soul selling needed to get a smile out of a girl much less get laid. Still, thinking back about reading those books as a kid I still feel the jungle that the Death Dealer was running around in. I remember with great want the weapons that the hero had and how awesome it would be to live that fantasy life. I won’t take those memories away from younger me. I have no doubts that everyone who likes to read has a similar story. If anyone out there in internetlandia has a book like this please share with the rest of us geeks.