It's a kind of magic

It's a fact. I like stories. No. I love stories. Any stories in general, but the weirder and more way out there it is, the more I enjoy it.
Small wonder I'm a huge fantasy and sci-fi freak.
Read most of the "great" fantasy works, and seriously looking for new stuff so any ideas??

I also prefer the book to the movie. Take Lord of the Rings as the ultimate example. Even though it is by far the best fantasy movie/series (for me), it is still a far cry from the book.
Not because they had to drop a lot of stuff because of time and budget limits. I understand all the limits that time, money and reality/science place on the making of such a movie.
I really tried to judge the movie not by the book, but on its own. And it was superb...but...
you are subjected to, in this case, Peter Jackson's idea of Middle Earth, the actors' portrayals of the various characters and the screen size.

Now take the book and read it.
No matter how much detail the author uses to describe a character, not one of us will imagine the same person.
No matter how specific their actions are spelled out, in each of our minds they will do it a bit differently.
No matter how life-like the environment is sketched with words and coloured in with sentences, it doesn't beat the fascinating expanse bursting through our mind, filling everything, not just a square screen, populated in even the smallest detail without thought as we follow the heroes on their journey.
And that is where the magic starts. The book, the story, is influenced by us. It becomes something much more personal than just a stream of pictures and sounds.

I had a good friend who described one part of Gandalf riding Shadowfax as follow:
In his mind he could see Gandalf sitting astride the great horse, and while the horse ran, legs pumping, the duo seemed to stand still against the sunset (or sunrise...my memory often lets me down), while the earth moved beneath them.
No matter how hard I try, I fail to do his idea justice by those words, but I understood what he meant. And that is something that I've never seen done on a movie and I doubt they could do it with the same magical effect it had in our minds.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Arthur C. Clarke

But one of the greatest magics in our lives are stories! Something that has been around since the first man spoke the first words. You don't need "advanced technology" to believe in magic, experience magic. All you need is a good story...preferably a good book. Some characters become like old friends. You are happy with them. You are sad with them. You are anxious when they are in trouble, angry when they are tricked and joyous when they conquer their foes/obstacles. You even miss them when they're gone. I don't remember how many books I've finished, wishing that it wasn't finished. That the story could still somehow go on. That the people and cities and worlds could live again in my mind.

But there is something else that is just as magical to me, but much more mystifying.
Dreams.
One of my greatest wishes is that I could remember my whole dream upon waking, instead of just shadowy snippets that disappears with the dawn.
Sometimes a dream can feel so real to me, that I wake up bewildered! What am I doing in bed? An instant ago I was...I was....somewhere...where was I?
I regularly experience a sort of "controlled" dreaming, although that is probably the wrong word. When I go to bed and relax into the softness, I start to, well I guess the most appropriate word is daydream. My imagination starts running wild and, though controlled at first, as I start to slip away into sleep, it breaks away and takes me places so weird and wonderful that I wish I could describe them or the events, but then for a single moment I'll realise I'm dreaming and snap awake and all I'm left with is lingering images and recollections that dissipate into a feeling of ultimate contentment and fall asleep to dream some more through the night. Usually they last only a minute or two, but they could feel like glorious hours.
Unless it's a dream where I suddenly trip or stumble or fall and I physically waken myself with a big spasm! But luckily, that is the closest I've ever come to a nightmare, as far as I can recall.
But those few times of rude awakenings are a small price to pay for the wonders of dreams.
For it is not only that unbelievable places and events can take place in your dreams; not only that your imagination can be as wild and untamed as it wants, creating things you might never think of during the day.
But in our dreams, those who've passed on to the next life, are as real and close and wonderful as they always were. And even though it is just a dream, in our dreams and in our memories they will live on with us, until the day we meet again. How is that not magical?

“Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you.”
Marsha Norman

So have a good night and absolutely amazing, magical dreams. Even if it's not of me ;)