Adam Weller has been blogging for about a year, and presumably reading for at least that long. Born in New Jersey and a Pennsylvania resident since the 90’s, Adam specializes in writing incredibly dull introductions.
Welcome to the Asylum! Take a seat by the fire, have a glass of beverage of your choice and tell me something about yourself!
Great to be here! Love what you’ve done with the place. Something about myself… let’s see… oh, I almost starred in a Hollywood movie when I was nine. That was a fun experience. Elijah Wood ended up getting the part, and it was his first starring role. Ever since then, Elijah has been my sworn nemesis, although he doesn’t know it. But he will. Oh yes. One day soon, he will…
What blogging means to you?
All my life, my friends and family have called me ’The Book Pusher’ because of my incessant habit of nagging everyone I know to read the latest book I’m geeking out on. It recently dawned on me that if I started blogging, I could start nagging strangers across the world! What a time to be alive.
Blogging serves as a creative outlet for me. Between raising two young girls and working long hours, reading and discussing stories is my number one way to decompress. Books inspire me like nothing else, and the SFF blogging community has been very receptive to trading thoughts and sharing reviews and recommendations. I’ve also found it to be a very positive and inclusive corner of the internet, which is getting harder to find these days.
You are locked in an asylum. What did you do to end up there?
My lawyer has advised me that I shouldn’t discuss the case before my trial. But I swear, that baby seal had it coming.
Which fictional character and/or author would you like to live with in an asylum?
Has to be Ruka (from Richard Nell’s ’Ash and Sand’ series). I like chess, and he’d be a good opponent. He’s also resourceful enough to… conjure up some new ways to pass the time, if things get boring. And if anyone bothers me, I’d ask Ruka to eat them. Plus, I hear he smells like lilacs.
Which fictional world would you like to live in?
This is a bit of a throwback, but Piers Anthony’s world of Xanth was always appealing to me. I haven’t read it in decades, and I’d likely feel much different about it now, but I remember thinking how cool it would be to live in a world where everyone has a magic talent. I’d hop on Craigslist and find some people with complementary powers and see what mischief we could get into. Plus it seems like they don’t take things too seriously over there, which is always a plus.
If you could switch lives with any character in a book, who would you choose? Would you like to have the author along as a fellow character?
Off the top of my head… Ford Prefect, the galactic hitch-hiker and alien journalist that collects info for the Guide. It would be quite an adventure to skip around the galaxy and experience foreign cultures, then write about your experiences to share with other travelers. Would I like to have Douglas Adams along? With whom else would I share my favorite verses of Vogon poetry?
You are a treasure hunter, about to retrieve a chest of gold from a sunken pirate ship, when a beautiful mermaid/merman approaches
you, trying to stop you. How do you react?
With a grenade, of course. Next question.
Your family allows you to keep one fantastical creature at home. What do you choose?
A dragon seems like the easy answer, but who wouldn’t want to fly around on the back of a majestic, flying, fire-breathing badass? I’d have to get her a job collecting tolls on the turnpike so she could build up her horde, but the State Department owes me a few favors, so we should be good.
You can have one magic ability for a day. What can you do and how do you spend that day?
I always wanted the ability to stop time. I’d snap my fingers and freeze everything around me for as long as I wished, then snap again to restart it. That way, the ’day’ would last as long as I wanted, and I could catch up on my, umm, reading. And other stuff, I presume.
I think it would also be interesting to have the power of ’whatever I think becomes reality.’ It’d be incredibly dangerous and I’d have to be careful that my thoughts don’t get carried away, but this is pretty much the magical equivalent of asking a genie for unlimited wishes.
You are a magical creature living near a village. How do you get on with humans?
I’d start with a candlelit massage, then let nature take over from there.
While you are locked in here for eternity, we will allow you one book – what would you choose?
I despise questions like these. It’s enough to drive me to an insane asyl—oh, I see what you’re doing. Let’s see… if I had to pick one… The Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, or perhaps the entire Discworld series omnibus. I realize that second one doesn’t exist, but I’d splice a bunch of eBooks and make my own version. Anything long and worth re-reading again and again, with lots of humor to make my eternity of solitude a bit more tolerable.
Well then, we hope you’ll enjoy your stay in the Asylum! Any last words? *locks door*
Hey, why is there a giant pit opening in the flllOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO–
Swiff is one of my fellow SPFBO judges over at Fantasy Book Review, but you might know him from Reddit’s r/Fantasy as well 🙂
Great interview and awesome answers! “With a grenade, of course. Next question.”
I laughed at that one! 🤣