Introduction The first 'adult' novel that I ever read (or more accurately, perhaps, attempted to read) was Lord of Darkness by Robert Silverberg. I recall that it was a borrowed library book that was lying around the house. Perhaps the cover, which I can remember very clearly, was what attracted me: The cover of the original edition, which I remember well from the library copy at our house when I was a kid. The cover shows Andrew Battell and Dona Teresa, the Portuguese femme fatale who nurses him back to health in the colony The edition that I currently own, published in 2013 by Nonstop Press I'm not sure how old I was when I tried to read it. Eight or nine years old, perhaps? When re-reading it years later, I was very surprised by some of the explicit content. I didn't remember it at all from the first time I had read the book. Maybe I had not understood it, or had not found those particular sections of the book interesting. What had r
