DALLAS, TX - World No. 1 Ben Johns is pickleball's most decorated athlete.

With 109 career PPA titles and 20 Triple Crowns since turning pro in 2016, his resume is simply sensational.

Now that Johns has some downtime after the PPA Finals, though, he plans on taking a little break from working on game before the 2024 campaign begins in early January.

So, what's on tap over the next few weeks activity-wise... aside from catching up on sleep?

Reading fantasy literature.

Apparently, Johns' fascination with the genre began with a legendary tale by renowned British author J. K. Rowling.

“When I was a kid, my family didn’t push reading. My parents wanted to let us naturally get hooked on it, and what hooked me was Harry Potter,” recalled Johns. “I started reading a ton once I got into those books, and I’ve read the series at least six or seven times.” 

Johns has read all the modern fantasy, science fiction, and dystopian classics.

Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” was another one of his childhood favorites.

“When I picked up the first book, I remember the night I read it because I picked it up at probably 9 p.m. and I read it straight through until 3 a.m. I loved all three books. They were really amazing. It was a defining series for me,” shared Johns.

Recently, “The Hunger Games” franchise expanded to include a movie adaptation of “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” a prequel to the series.

Although John’s hasn’t seen the film, he has a few general thoughts on sequels, prequels, and spin-offs.

“I have mixed feelings. Prequels, I think, can be done really well. I don’t naturally have a lot of interest in them because I already know how the future of the story pans out, which is, I think, what most people are interested in,” said Johns. “But there are certain prequels that go very well when they dive into the depths of characters that you wish you knew more about, so when they do that, I think they’re more successful.”

A recent trend in film and TV is a focus on creating prequels and sequels from beloved and best-selling franchises.

Johns has seen his fair share from his favorite series, but surprisingly he elects not to read them.

“I usually choose not to read sequels or prequels because you almost have this perfect image of when you finish a series, how everything is, and sometimes the sequels can actually spoil what that image is in your mind,” said Johns. “A good example of that is one of my favorite trilogies of all time - ‘Red Rising.’ It turned out not to be a trilogy after the success of the first three. The following books went a little more into the future of the story.”

This is a common occurrence in the publishing industry. Writers will write and publish a completed series, the series will have a boom in popularity, and the publishers ask the writers to get creative and add a prequel or sequel, stretch out the series, or write a spin-off.

But Johns won’t be reading any of those additional published novels.

“I loved the first three so much that I didn’t want to ruin the image of what it was like and how it finished in my mind, so I chose not to read book four, five, and six. I finished it all on the third because I think the later ones were more of an add-on than original in my mind,” explained Johns.

So, what is the 24-year-old currently reading?

“I just finished book one of ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ by Sarah J. Maas, and I’m listening to the audiobooks for her other series, ‘Throne of Glass,’” revealed Johns.

This is actually Johns' second time reading “Throne of Glass.” He enjoyed the escapism and adventure in Maas' writing. Maas is particularly well known for her romantic subplots. Sure, the action and adventure is riveting, especially when it comes to fantasy, and readers get to adventure into magical worlds with fantastical beings and creatures. And, it’s fun to fall in love.

When asked about the aforementioned romantic subplots, Johns laughed.

“There’s not many books that I can think of that are successful and well done that don’t also have well-done romantic interests. ‘Red Rising’ and ‘The Hunger Games’ do a great job with that,” he said.

Admittedly, Johns is particularly picky about what kind of fictional romance he likes to read.

“I don’t like for things to be easy and natural, like they fall into it and it’s all great and perfect. I like it when one of the characters is very flawed and they get involved anyway, or they have a long path to redemption. Maybe they start out bad and they go more towards the good side in later books,” said Johns. “Basically, I liked a flawed hero.” 

“I rely on my siblings to give me recommendations,” added Johns. “My little sister reads a lot and she’ll give me some. I got her into reading the 'Red Queen' series and she really liked that one. We just kind of trade book recommendations. My other sister, Hannah, got me involved in reading ‘Twilight’ back when I was 12 or 13 years old. Maybe that’s where my interest in romance novels comes from because I did like the ‘Twilight’ series a lot.”

With that in mind, is he Team Edward or Team Jacob?

“I like Edward more. I never really cared for Jacob much because he was too impulsive and he just did dumb stuff all the time,” responded Johns.

Johns has also watched all of the “Vampire Diaries,“ and he’s team Damon. Mystical creatures and flawed heroes, those are Johns’ favorites in books and movies alike, but he also loved the political intrigue of George R. R. Martin’s “Game of Thrones“ series.

“The books were awfully complex and very thick and difficult to get through, but they were really amazing at the same time. I’ve still been waiting for the next book to come out, which has been many years now,” said Johns.

Johns has also watched the TV show adaptation and shared some of the frustrations from one of TV’s most hated series finales.

“I wasn’t one of the people that hated the ending. I don’t mind how it ended, I just felt that it was very rushed and ended too quickly,” expressed Johns. “I think it’s kind of typical that when you hand something off to a movie or TV show producer without the outlines of the books to set them in the right direction, it doesn’t pan out well. You think something cinematically is going turn out well, and if you don’t have the guideline of the book to actually ensure that the ending is good, then you basically just changed your author.”

He continued: “George R. R. Martin knew what he was doing, and he was probably going to write the ending really well, and then the producers just go off on their own. I’m not sure how close Martin is going to stick to that ending and align with it, but he probably would have written it better and it would’ve been more developed.”

Johns might be an expert on pickleball gameplay, but fantasy connoisseur can certainly be added to his CV, too.