...I had help...

Dec 04, 2006

When I was in kindergarten, my daily ritual consisted of coming home from school, making a peanut butter sandwich, and watching TV for about an hour. Once I turned on the TV and saw a hand holding something — a spaceship. The next shot showed the people “inside”, fighting to stay standing while this hand shook their ship. My mom walked past at that moment and turned off the TV. “Don’t watch that!” she said. “It will give you nightmares!”

Even at the tender age of five, I knew that what I had seen was oh so fake. Possibly entertaining, but fake as anything. Nightmares? From that?!? Lady, there were foam rubber rocks that *bounced*. Even five-year-olds can grok the fakeitude.

Later that evening, when Dad came home, I told him about the show I’d seen. That weekend, we sat down and watched another syndicated episode of the original Star Trek. There followed other shows: Space 1999. Planet of the Apes (both the movies and the show.) The original Battlestar Galactica. Dads was my sci-fi pusher.

In 1977, when my dad was working in another country, my mom took my sibling and I to see Star Wars. Poor mom kept checking her watch. My sib, who was half my age, kept squirming and asking if it was time to go home. I, on the other hand, was literally on the edge of my seat. The first book I bought with my own money was Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (which all true Star Wars fans will now get a twinge of eeuuuwwwww...dude, that’s your sister!!! But at the time, it was a fairly decent book.) I soon read or watched nearly anything science-fiction-related. Looking back, I can’t pinpoint exactly what caught my imagination: I know that as soon as I discovered libraries, I often made a beeline to the mythology section and avidly read the Greek, Roman, and Norse myths. In Star Wars, I definitely saw an updated version of the myths that I already loved. I already noticed a narrowness in gender roles, seeing the boys got all the cool dirtbikes and the Boy Scouts got to go on the cool camping trips while the girls made Lifesaver ornaments and didn’t even have a good pine derby. Princess Leia, on the other hand, got to kick some butt and talk back to the bad guys.

I’ve continued to enjoy science fiction to this day. I get constant reminders of Sturgeon’s Revelation; but I’m still drawn to science fiction time and again. I don’t read or watch that genre exclusively, but it’s fair to say that it makes up the bulk of my bookshelf (and movie shelf). I enjoy fully-built worlds. I enjoy seeing how authors will put characters up against something, anything — a society where cloned humans are de rigeur; an Earth where chimps and dolphins converse with us; a world of magic-that-isn’t; a world where people can live forever — and how the central issue isn’t this new technology. It’s how the people deal with the new technology. It’s how they define, and redefine, themselves and their world. It’s how they define, and wrestle with, what it means to be human: alive, aware of consequence and action, aware of the other as much as ourself. The best stories deal extensively with ethical, moral, and philosophical issues that we all deal with every day.

And of course there are the satires. Lots and lots of satire in science fiction and fantasy, as well as satire about science fiction fandom (I love Galaxy Quest!)

Some historical fiction, especially alternate historical fiction (what would have happened if someone gave the Confederate army a weapons-advantage in the Civil War?), catches my attention. Some action, mythology, philosophy, history...but mostly, I gravitate toward science fiction.

(Just don’t ask me to wear a costume. I never had the patience or enthusiasm to play dress-up as a kid; I don’t do it as an adult, either. Though I can appreciate the effort that some folks put into theirs...)

Keywords: | social commentary | science fiction | satire | humor | Holidailies |
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