BTT: Other Worlds

(From 7 August 2008): Are there any particular worlds in books where you’d like to live? Or where you certainly would NOT want to live? What about authors? If you were a character, who would you trust to write your life?
I'd love to live in Harry Potter's world of course! Even with Voldemort and the other baddies, there'd never be any shortage of exciting things happening. And who wouldn't want to live in a world with magic?

And now for a little secret...I've sometimes fantasised about living in John Marsden's world from the Tomorrow...When the War Began series. If you haven't read the series, it's about a group of Australian teenagers who manage to escape being imprisoned when Australia is invaded by another nationality. They go bush and then begin making attacks on the enemy, starting small (blowing up a bridge) and getting bigger and bigger (blowing up an airport). I know it would be an awful, awful world to live in, but I can't help but think about being in that situation myself and wondering whether I'd have the guts to do the stuff they did. I suppose it's the inner delinquent in me wanting to get out and experience the adrenaline of destroying stuff (structures, not people, of course!) So now you know my dirty little secret...

Oh, and having just finished Thank You, Jeeves by PG Wodehouse, I'd happily move in with Bertie to watch him get into his mishaps! And the world of Alice in Wonderland might be all right, but it'd probably do my head in after a while. And I'd love to join the time-traveller in The Time Machine by HG Wells. Ooh, come to think of it, give me War of the Worlds too! If only so I can get to see aliens/spaceships.

I've just been looking through the books I've read in the past few years, and I didn't realise how utterly miserable most of my books are! There are very few worlds or lives I'd like to inhabit.

As for where I wouldn't want to live...A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess says it all, I think. I also wouldn't want to live anywhere that Stephen King has written about!