After ten years.

I am now rereading Christopher Pike's the Last Vampire series (now called Thirst 1, 2, 3 and 4). I was 16 when I first encountered the mad magic of his professional yet youthful wordplay. I was the only one in school the kakak library would lend to more than four books at one time. I was crazy in love with Christopher Pike and I managed to finish almost every title by him in the school library. Then I left school for UiTM. Some years went by and I began to choose the people I read. I forgot about Mr Pike for a while. At one point I even thought that my teenage obsession towards his books existed because I was a teenager and I hadn't read that many authors yet. That was insolence no matter the angle you try to look at it. Reading his books literally reformed and refined my writing skills, although what most of you may have read in this blog are just average posts written in average English - believe me, I was so much worst. So yeah. Insolence indeed.

Ten years have gone. The Last Vampire now has 8 major chapters bound in four volumes. I now own all eight and have started rereading the series yesterday. My progress? 5 books in two days. Not that impressive, really - one book has at most only 200 pages. Now I'm starting book six - Creatures of Forever. The crazy thing about this whole matter is the fact that after ten years, Mr Pike still amazes me with his lovable characters, his stories and the unpredictabilities of the plots. He amazes me with everything he does. Every single thing. And if it's possible to marry a writing style, I'd marry his. Haha.

I don't know how he looks like. Wiki says he has very few interviews due to his highly private life. But I really hope to one day meet him. To personally tell him what wonderful things reading his books has done to me and how much being able to understand English means to me because I could enjoy his writings. His language is simple, but the depths of his stories go way beyond the dark of your thoughts and that's what I like best about his books. How he could make me feel deep emotions with non-complicated strings of words. Not many writers do that that well, I can say that for certain.

You'll find titles with vampires in them spilling off the shelves in bookstores. Take my advice, choose his. Read all eight of the Thirst. And try Twilight or Darren Shan after that. Because the Last Vampire began in 1994, long before the Cullens and Shan began and Sita is a 5000-year-old wonder with a beating heart. Or you can try something older from Anne Rice - the Vampire Chronicles which I read when I was 13. Because Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976 and Lestat does not sparkle in the sun like a gaytard emotional undead. Pft.

I'm trying to collect Mr Pike's books now, starting with the Thirsts. They're some of the things that made my teenage years a part of my life I'd always miss. I miss the innocence that I was when I first read him. I'd do a lot of crazy things to feel like that again. Because growing up reading is something I'd very much love to relive, over and over again.

If any of you or some people you know own his books and are thinking of selling them, I'd love to be the first to know. I'd be thankful and we'd be friends. That I promise.

Now, how have all of you been in my absence?