Kinless wrote a post which I really, really liked called Driving Thoughts. Go and read, it’s worth it.
I loved the last paragraph:
That got me to thinking about how lost I got in those stories Id read as a kid. Moorcocks Elric of Melnibone adventuring, caught in the everlasting battle between Law and Chaos. One scene, theyre in some jungles somewhere, and hes examining an artifact, and I dont know the details, but I remember it as if Id seen it on t.v. (which I didnt), and thats just wild. The ability of stories, or story worlds, to draw you in and capture your imagination. The falling threads that McCaffreys dragonriders of Pern hoped to stop. The crazy world of Melvilles New Crobuzon. I dont want to be alone there. I want to rock, and be noble, and live, in a populated world that delights the mind.
I’ve written about something very similar. I’ve always said that I’ve loved Mercedes Lackey’s Vanyel Ashkevron more than I’ve loved another “real” human being. He is basically myself as a teenager, except male. And gifted. Whatever, you know what I mean. :) I can remember scenes from books that I read as a child as crystal-clear today as they were when I first read them, the one in the family camping home movies sitting aside from the rest of the family with her nose in a book. I lived through books.
MMOs can sometimes give me that feeling again, the feeling of being someone else, a hero adventuring in a magical land. It makes me forget for a bit that I spend my days at a desk in front of a computer, and there is no danger, little challenge, and very little magic.