Resident nerd reporting for duty!

Hey everyone! Since this is my first post, let me introduce myself. I'm Mary, and I've been coerced... errrr... persuaded... I mean... I've volunteered.... to join Across the Board as a sci-fi/fantasy blogger. Why me? Well, because I am a huge nerd. Not only do I consume sci-fi/fantasy like nobody's business, I also write it.

Why sci-fi/fantasy? Because it takes you out of this world and shows you wonders. It lets you explore new universes and see things unbounded by the rules of this world. And I want magic. I want spaceships, and fairy dust, and swordfights, and alien technology... I want the things I can't find in my humdrum life.

Fantasy is arguably the oldest of all genres, since the most ancient of tales we have all involve the supernatural. Gods and creatures and wizards... From the dawn of time, humans have been spinning stories about things that, rationally speaking, could never happen. Sci-fi, meanwhile, asks the question of "what if" and looks to the future, daring to speculate about tomorrow.

Sci-fi/fantasy also allows people to explore grander concepts - of good and evil, of what makes one human, of true love's power - through tales unbounded by the fences of what's "realistic." In a way, it elevates its characters. They can be heroes in a grand sense, saving the world from the wicked, or proving the power of loyalty, or falling to the temptations of power. The real world is restrained by what's feasible. And it's full of annoying "nos." No, you can't wave your hand and open a portal to another dimension. No, unicorns don't exist, and you certainly can't ride one. It would take you a half a lifetime to reach the edges of our star system - not that you could get funding for it - let alone find alien planets. Which are star-baked rocks of death. So no, you can't meet aliens. No, no, no.

Well, to the Underworld with no. That's what sci-fi/fantasy says. Anything is possible, and as long as it follows its own set of rules within its universe, anything is believable. The really great world-builders make their stories come to life because it feels real, even when physics and biology and whatnot say it can't be. Okay, so Einstein said we can't travel faster than light. Sci-fi writers send their spaceships across galaxies anyway - without time dilation - because it makes for a hella exciting ride. In a way, sci-fi/fantasy is an act of defiance.

Perhaps someday, I'll decide I want to write something that could plausibly happen, here on earth, in actuality, but for now, I'm sticking with my dreamworlds. In fact, at this point in time, I can't imagine not writing something that involves magics or technologies beyond this world. I love to come up with far-fetched ideas and look for ways to make them believable. Hence why everything I've ever written has taken place either in the far future or a distant fantasyland.

Anyway, you can look forward to a lot more nerdy posts from yours truly - about writing, about books, about sci-fi/fantasy stuff in general. And I hope you'll find it entertaining and/or helpful.

So live long and prosper. And may the Force be with you. Meanwhile, I aim to misbehave.

I am an elf.