Introduction

This is probably one of the hardest pages that I've had to write on Thorn Valley. Ironic, too, 'cause it's likely to also be one of the least looked at. Oh well...

Well, to start with, I'm Simon, which is short for Seoman... the name I use for my email, and the name that I used to use for Thorn Valley. Why the change? Mostly because Simon's the name of my character on NIMHmuck. And I think I like it better. Anyway, it's obviously not my real name, but you can find all about who's really behind this circus on my About Me page.

Anyway, this is my website dedicated to the book, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien, and the movie based on it, The Secret of NIMH produced by animator Don Bluth.

Why? Why make a website dedicated to a somewhat obscure book (and movie)? Well... that's kind of a long story...

Flying Dreams

(Or, how I got obsessed enough to do this)

I don't really remember the first time that I saw the Secret of NIMH. It seems to me that I first saw it when we recorded it from the Disney Channel when I was about seven. I remember that I liked it, though not as much as most of the Disney movies, probably because I didn't understand it that much. I didn't start really liking it until around the time I read the book it was based on (in about 6th grade), Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. I guess the reason for that was that I really liked the book's storyline, and I also liked the visual appeal that Secret of NIMH had, so when I read, I would imagine the characters and settings as they appeared in the movie, and when I watched the movie, I attributed the deeper aspects of the characters and the plot (which are found in the book, but glossed over in the movie because of time constraints) to those in the movie. So, reading the book and watching the movie together enhanced my experience from both of them, even with the inconsistencies between them.

Timothy

The book also introduced a character that I identified with quite a bit at that age; Timothy Frisby. Admittedly, the book gave only a brief sketch of him as a character, and the movie did even less. I think what really made Timothy my favorite character was reading the book sequel Racso and the Rats of NIMH (by R.C. O'Brien's daughter), which focused more on him, and which I thought was an excellent story at the time. Of course, my opinion of the book sequels has changed over the years, but Timothy remains as the character that I saw myself in. So... if you've ever wondered why there's a lot of things on Thorn Valley that have to do with Timothy, I hope that answers your question.

Growing Up with Animation

Anyway, after a while I'd all but forgotten about NIMH and grew into reading a lot of science fiction and fantasy books and devoting a lot of attention to a then-hobby that I continue to devote most of my time to: computers. I don't think I ever lost my love of animation. Like any kid, I loved (most of) the Disney movies, and would often watch them so often and repeatedly that I probably just about drove my parents insane. While I was getting older and reading much longer books and learning a ton about computers, I never stopped watching animated flicks.

To tell the truth, I almost never cared for much of the live-action offerings, and to this day, I have never seen Terminator or Titanic or any number of popular films. Never have interested me, I guess, although there are a number of exceptions, and the list grows, albeit slowly. And fortunately enough, I have a number of younger siblings, so I always had a good excuse to see the latest animated flick.

As long as it's not Disney...

However, after a number of really good movies, like Rescuers Down Under, Aladdin, and The Lion King, Disney started its decline in animation, beginning with the abject failure, Pocahontas -- a feature absolutely dripping with political correctness and the most saccarine sweet comic relief characters I'd seen before (namely the idiotic racoon and hummingbird). Things only went downhill from there; Disney was in a slump that it wouldn't even come close to getting out of until Mulan. Even now, I consider most Disney features to be rather hit-and-miss, and if it weren't for Pixar bailing them out, I wouldn't be watching nearly any Disney at all. (Yes I know that Pixar isn't Disney, but... oh, nevermind.)

So I began looking a lot more closely at the animated movies produced by other studios, looking for something to satisfy the animation bug in me. One movie worth mentioning here is Balto produced by Steven Spielberg. I absolutely loved this movie. My only regret is that I never saw it in theaters; my first look at it was on the Disney channel. (Side note: too bad the Disney Channel no longer runs any good movies like this anymore. They seemed to be convinced that it's better to turn it into one long commercial for their theme parks and movies than to show anything worthwhile.)

Balto had everything that I'd been missing from Disney; a good, well-paced plot, engaging characters that you grow to care about, just the right amount of comic relief... all-in-all a very good movie. I think this is what led me to rediscover some favorite, older, non-Disney movies, like An American Tale and eventually The Secret of NIMH. I ended up buying a factory copy of it, to replace the aging Disney Channel recording, and reread the book. But I wasn't obsessed yet... although due to some very unique circumstances, I began to toy with the idea of writing my own book sequel to Racso and the Rats of NIMH and even wrote out a couple of small rough drafts -- which became the germ for my (still-unfinished) Return to NIMH fan fiction.

The Internet Changes Everything

Oh, that fateful day when I was introduced to the Internet. If it weren't for that, I probably would've ended up considering The Secret of NIMH to be just another movie in my 'favorites' collection. As with many others who have been introduced to NIMH fandom in one way or another, I happened upon Jeremy Hodges NIMH website. Through an incredible stroke of luck, I might add, since I kept insisting on misspelling 'NIMH' as 'NIHM' (and search engines were much less forgiving about spelling back then, let me tell you). And through Jeremy's links page I discovered a whole slew of people that loved this flick enough to make a website of some sort.

And if that wasn't enough, I found Robin's NIMH Fan-Fiction Archive. I was hooked. I blame the late Paul S. Gibbs for that with his excellent stories Rats of Thorn Valley and Second in Command; I had never before read anything close to that caliber for what was supposedly "amateur" fan-fiction. And it made me want to work on Return to NIMH even more.

But where to put it?

Thorn Valley is Born

Since it was very much a work in progress, I didn't feel it a good idea to put it up at Robin's, since I'd likely be changing it 3 or 4 or 5 or who knows how many times until I was satisfied... but I wanted to put it where others could see it and give me feed back... and I had only a few months earlier created a small personal site on Geocities... Maybe it wouldn't hurt to put it up in a subsection of my site... I think I'll call it "Thorn Valley"... I'm still amazed, to this day, that I was the first person to use that as the name for a Secret of NIMH fan-site. :)

From its humble beginnings in about February of 1998 as a collection of pages made with the venerable Claris Home Page software on my high school's Macintoshes and about 100 or so screengrabs created mainly to have some graphics I could use on my site, Thorn Valley has grown in ways I couldn't have possibly imagined. Heck, its even got its own domain name. I thank all of you that have helped me with ideas for Thorn Valley, or expressed their appreciation of my work, or have in any way contributed to make it a better place through fan-art and even site maintenance. It's been a wild ride, and I intend on sticking with it for as long as I can.

Conclusion

Thanks again for visiting Thorn Valley. Remember if you can't find something on Thorn Valley, just click the "Site Map" or "Search" links on the top and bottom of the pages. And if you need any help, you'll find "Help" links in the same locations. And finally, if you want to send me an email, just click the "Contact Simon" links and follow the instructions.

Thanks for visiting and enjoy your stay.