So you should read this very funny interview with the author of Heck, Dale Basye, that was over at Powells.com
Some of my favorite parts:
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Do you read the Sunday funnies, and which are your favorites?
Yes. Prince Valiant, because the humor is so subtle.
What is your favorite breakfast cereal?
It used to be Cap'n Crunch, but I realize now, years later, after the roof of my mouth has healed, that the cereal doesn't naturally sport a coppery taste. I try to eat healthier now and enjoy a bowl of Puffins, though I was really disappointed not to find "auk seabird" on the list of ingredients.
What was your favorite story as a child?
I really enjoyed the Little House on the Prairie books, which is weird because I was a boy, now a man, and was really into Star Trek and sci-fi. Perhaps Laura Ingalls Wilder's prairie was so far removed from my own personal experience that it seemed like science fiction. Maybe baby Carrie was a cyborg all along, and Pa a time lord from another dimension, sent to Kansas to fulfill a mysterious destiny! Anyway, I found the series — and still do — to be immensely engrossing and affecting. For a while, I was almost physically attached to Frank Herbert's Dune series. I was scary into it.
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Read more here.