Rumor has it that it’s spring. The hyacinths and daffodils agree, if the endless rain does not (begone, April showers!) and so I find myself thinking about adventures. Generally these are not of the dragon-slaying, world-saving type, but more along the lines of “Look, I bet there’s a nice view from that hill” or “Perhaps we might visit a town we haven’t been to before.”
Spring cleaning is a thing, sure, but spring adventuring ought to be. We—those of us in the northern hemisphere, at any rate—might be waking up from our hibernation seasons, stretching like blooming flowers and new grass, and itching to do something that doesn’t take place indoors. Where to start? Well, surely SFF books have some suggestions.
Please note that I am using the term “adventure” quite loosely here.
Wake up. The most basic step one. You don’t even have to get out of bed, really (see: the grandparents in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). It’s possible an adventure (or maybe just a hungry cat) will come to you. Or you’ll find you’re suddenly the heir to an empire, like poor unprepared Maia in The Goblin Emperor. Alternately, waking up can be dangerous. The very first words of The Hunger Games are, “When I wake up.” And we all know what happened to that guy in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.
Sample a delicious treat. There’s the titular Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi. There’s a certain witch’s house in the forest. There’s Turkish delight (deliciousness debatable). If you happen to be a hobbit, there are probably four or five kinds of scones and muffins for each breakfast. You’ve got to start somewhere, and with a full belly is best.
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Untethered Sky
Pay attention to the birds. They might steal your young sibling (Colin Meloy’s Wildwood) or surprise you by having a few things to say, or need your help (Charlie Jane Anders’ All the Birds in the Sky).
Investigate a doorway. Another classic. Perhaps you just need to check every closet and/or wardrobe in the house, in case there’s a way to Narnia that you overlooked. (Wasn’t there a King of the Hill episode where the dryer was a portal? Farewell, lost socks; may your adventures never require darning!) But there are doors and then there are Doors, as in Alix E. Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January. And one might always take a less literal path. As Catherynne Valente writes in The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, “A book is a door, you know. Always and forever. A book is a door into another place and another heart and another world.”
Set out on a trip. It doesn’t have to be an epic journey, or involve light-speed travel. Nalo Hopkinson’s Ti-Jeanne (Brown Girl in the Ring) starts her story in a pedicab. The siblings of Thistlefoot go to New York to pick up their inheritance (which happens to be a chicken-legged house). Sure, you could head out in a spaceship to a definitely-full-of-monsters location in deep space, or you could take a train ride with a nice view. Equally valid, really. (Though perhaps not the train to hell, as advised in Kelly Link’s “Flying Lessons.” Many Link stories start with a setting-out; in one of her books, you could take your pick of intriguing beginnings.)
Join a sports team. Bear with me, for I am not talking about that thing with the brooms. The hockey players of Quan Barry’s We Ride Upon Sticks would scoff; they have their own kind of magic (and a great deal more athleticism). Teamwork makes the dream work, especially when the dream begins in a historically witchy town and involves Emilio Estevez’s image on a particular notebook.
Locate a rare manuscript. Yes, this might involve first going to a bookstore. A terrible fate, clearly. But one never knows what one might find, as the fantastic framing device in Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox shows.
Go to work. Applicable to varying degrees depending on how interesting your work is, which can mean any number of things. Garth Nix’s left-handed booksellers might face any number of odd adventures on a given day, as might most court wizards, knights, spaceship captains, Doctors Who, and the like. If your job is a bit more down to earth, perhaps you might still venture out to a new coffee shop on your lunch break. (We take our thrills where we can get ‘em.)
Stop by the liquor store. Before you judge, remember: adventures do not have to begin by daylight. Though to be more precise, Devon in Sunyi Dean’s The Book Eaters stops by a shop that somehow has both vodka and skin cream. The liquor stores in many of our towns are a bit more limited. And Devon’s adventure is a difficult and harrowing one, fraught with family history. But a liquor store might be a hangout for interesting miscreants, and if not, you can always pick up the makings of a new co*cktail. Barring that, you might step into a nearby tavern, like Breq in Ancillary Justice, especially if someone outside looks familiar and needs help.
Take a stroll. You don’t even have to walk all the way to Mordor. (Though you certainly can, if you want to.) You don’t even have to make it to the Lonely Mountain. There is so much walking in fantasy novels. Is it even a quest if your feet don’t ache? Good thing we specified adventures, not quests. But setting yourself a manageable quest—say, walking to a slightly distant but appealing ice cream vendor because someday it’s going to be nice out again—can result in a brief yet satisfying adventure.
Change your life. It never happens all at once, even for Becky Chambers’ Sibling Dex. But there comes a day when you need a change. Maybe a small one. Maybe a new vocation. Maybe a new route on your daily walk. Maybe a move to a new town. Maybe a decision to treat yourself with more kindness. It can all be an adventure—if you want it to be.
Molly Templeton lives and writes in Oregon, and spends as much time as possible in the woods. Sometimes she talks about books on Twitter.
