Читать книгу One Beastly Beast: Two aliens, three inventors, four fantastic tales - Гарт Никс, Garth Nix - Страница 3

Blackbread the Pirate
The Princess and the Beastly Beast
Bill the Inventor
Serena and the Sea Serpent

Dear Reader,

Once upon a time, quite a long time ago, there was a boy who loved stories. He liked all kinds of stories, but particularly those about pirates, and aliens, and inventors, and sea serpents and knights and castles and monsters and dark nights when the moon was just a sliver in the sky, and a boy or a girl had to become a hero and take on terrible tasks to make everything right with the world.

The boy was lucky, because his parents loved stories too and their house was full of books, and he was even luckier still, because there was a library halfway between school and home. So he read more tales of adventure and excitement, more stories about talking animals and hideous beasts and brave children and magic both fair and foul.

That boy, of course, was me. I still love all kinds of stories, but most of all I like the ones that tell of fantastic creatures and fabulous places. When I grew up, I found out that I didn’t want to just read stories like that, I wanted to write them.

I’ve pretty much written all my books for myself. When I write, I just try to tell the kind of story that I like to read. These four stories in particular are for that young boy, who more than thirty-five years ago signed up for a life of adventure through reading.

Garth Nix