It's both Indiana Jones and 'National Geographic' that inspired me to be an Egyptologist.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was an anthropology major in college, and I've had a lifelong fascination with Egyptology, mummies, and all sorts of bizarre cultural practices.
I get mad when people call me an action movie star. Indiana Jones is an adventure film, a comic book, a fantasy.
Ray Bradbury was the first author that I was really exposed to back in grade school. I'm a big Philip K. Dick fan, but the emotion and humanity that Bradbury brings to his stories and the way he uses sci-fi to get at the human heart is something that's unique and for me incredibly influential.
It's very surreal. It seems like everywhere I go, people always talk about 'Indiana Jones,' and I realized over the years it has made a huge impact on their childhoods... I feel very fortunate to be a part of this.
It wasn't until I was in my teens that I started admiring writers as inspirations for my own work, and my earliest influences there were Stephen King, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Richard Adams.
I watch a lot of 'National Geographic.'
I would have been an Egyptologist if I had had the schooling.
I was a comic book nut and grew up on 'Star Wars' and 'Indiana Jones.'
The first author I remember being obsessed by, actually realizing 'I like the way he writes and I like the way he tells stories,' was C.S. Lewis and the 'Narnia' books.
I was inspired to become a writer by horror movies and science fiction.