As long as I can remember, I’ve always been an avid reader. In fact, some of my earliest memories have been about reading with my mom or my grandmom. In fact, after watching Transformers, Voltron, and G.I. Joe, I’d do my homework and then pore through the dictionary or the encyclopedia (y’know, back when those things were actually books and not digitized) to learn new words and new things. I may have been a nerd, but who cares; I’m having fun, right?
Anyway, the question for the day is “what book could you read over and over.” Never mind that I took part of the theme for Reading Rainbow as my title, but it makes a bit of sense. The book that I can read over and over is actually a series of books by Tom Clancy called – ostentatiously enough – Tom Clancy’s Net Force. Why? I’ll tell you why, and it may be weird to some, but I found it quite funny when it happened.
About six years ago, my wife was working at Dillard’s in the shoe department. We had just moved to Tuscaloosa-South, and I had no job, but was avidly looking, because I was getting bored with sitting at home. So, she asked me to pick her up from work one day, and I was happy to oblige. I ended up leaving the house early and got to the mall with about 30-40 minutes to spare. Not wanting to interrupt her at work, I went into Books-A-Million and decided to pick up a book to kill some time. The book I decided on was the first in Tom Clancy’s Net Force series, simply called Tom Clancy’s Net Force. I walked over to one of the benches close to the store and started reading.
When my wife got off work, I blindly asked how her day was, but I was still reading.
While we walked to the car, I was still reading.
When we got to traffic lights, I continued to read (I’m not incompetent enough to read while driving).
When we got home, I continued to read while eating dinner.
I basically finished the book in one day.
Next day, I did it again with another book in the series until I got caught up. While waiting on the new book to be released, I read the old ones over and over. When the series was completed, I was a bit sad, but I enjoyed them all. The characters were well thought out, the stories were engrossing, and the technology they used was well-developed.
I haven’t picked them up recently, but I know for a fact that if I ever want to transport myself to a different time and place, I’ll just pick up the first edition of Tom Clancy’s Net Force and step into that life again.