The first time I ever saw Thunderbirds was when I was 14 years old. My family used to rent videos once a week from the Blockbuster Video that was 40 miles away from our tiny town in Iowa (insert violins here). One time my father chose some movie I'd never heard of called Thunderbirds Are Go. I distinctly recall this first exposure to Thunderbirds. It was just the two of us watching in the den, and, to put it plainly, I was horrified.

I was, admittedly, mesmerized by these marionettes. What horrified me was the fact that they could bleed. (If you've seen TBAG, you know what scene I'm talking about.) I'm like...but they're not alive...how can they bleed?

I ended up watching it four times.

Seventeen years later, I happened to be sitting here at home on my couch one weekend, flipping through the program guide on the TV, desperate to find something even remotely interesting to watch. I happened upon Tech TV, and saw the title Thunderbirds. I thought, No...it couldn't be the same thing as that movie. But it was. I recognized the characters...but only at that moment did I realize they had not just been that movie my father and I had watched - they had been a television show as well!

I was hooked from that first episode I watched. Again, mesmerized. But this time, not so horrified. And when I finally bought TBAG about a month after finding the show, I was stunned to discover I remembered nearly every frame and every word spoken. (Not bad after 17 years considering I can never remember what I had for breakfast in the morning...or whether I even ate breakfast...)

The funny thing is, be it because of my obsession with writing Thunderbirds stories, or because I've just seen the show so much, I don't even notice they're marionettes anymore. To me, these are flesh-and-blood people, as real as you and I. And I only hope that the stories I write do justice to the men and women who never fail to inspire me.

I hope they...and my stories...inspire you as well.