Tad Williams came into my life entirely by accident.

A few years ago -Otherland- (the first book) was the “Featured Selection” in the Science Fiction Book Club and we forgot to check that we weren’t ordering it. By the time I was halfway through the first chapter, I realized that I wanted to read more.

So, as I would later do with Connie Willis, I looked for every Tad Williams book I could find.

I reread the “Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn” series recently. I had forgotten how much I liked it. Not quite tame wolves, not quite tame princesses, not quite grown knights. A prince on the run, ships on fire, a monk who can’t always be trusted, a boy and a girl who may or may not be in love, immortal allies and their dangerously mad enemies. And Miriamele, the prettiest name ever for a character…well, one of the three prettiest. I like Christabel and Liaden too.

Anyway, it’s all Tad’s fault, really. Well, partly. If it weren’t for him and the brains behind ­The Once and Future King- I’d be happily off in historical fiction land for the rest of my life. Instead I’m learning names like Andre Norton and Marion Zimmer Bradley and dragging out my Wrinkle in Time series to read again.

Fantasy. It’s a strange and wondrous thing.