The Book Corner: "My Life As A Science Fiction And Fantasy Reader"

I was six years old when Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone" went on the air, and while too young to be an actual reader yet, I was immediately fascinated by the ways Serling used the magical and the fantastic to comment on the real human condition and to actually stretch the imagination and get viewers to think about life in new ways. By the time I became a genuinely fanatical reader around age ten or eleven, I was also fascinated with fantasy's close cousin, science fiction, for the same reasons. I know that a lot of non-s.f. snobs put down the fields as nothing more than "escapism', but they've never struck me as being any more escapist than any other kind of fiction, and in many cases quite the opposite... don't you doubt for a second that when the internet and the technology explosion hit, among the few groups of people who weren't overwhelmed were the science fiction and fantasy readers. We live in a science fiction and fantasy world.

At first, I would just grab anything that had those labels on it, reading it all indiscriminately. But I sound found that not only was some of it notably better than the rest, but that there were actually many different subgenres within the larger two, and that some of them appealed to me more than others... and that there were writers who tended to specialize in those subgenres. It was shortly after that that I began seeking out specific writers by name for the first time, the very first of these being Ray Bradbury. The man was and is a genuine poet writing in the guise of prose, turning out stories that don't read like anyone else's. Before long names like Clifford D. Simak, Harlan Ellison, Gordon R. Dickson, Ursula K. Leguin, Robert Silverberg and others were added to this list. But I also began running into people who continually dismissed the genres as immature, nothing but "that Buck Rogers Stuff" or fantasy as no more than fairy tales. What I really found amusing about those people was that in many cases they really did read and enjoy the stuff, they just bent over backwards to deny it.

They would rave about books like Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" or Orwell's "1984" but if you tried to tell them those books were science fiction they'd go into long, discursive dialogues about how they couldn't be because they didn't have robots or rayguns or rocket ships in them... as if the field could never be anything else but that. What I really found hysterical, though, was when they would try to explain away my hero Ray Bradbury as not really being science fiction, even though rockets often DID play a part in his stories. I understood that there was no need to worry about those who had such a narrow definition of science fiction or fantasy. They obviously didn't understand. So I just kept on reading.

I became REALLY absorbed in the fields when I discovered conventions. I've never really been much of a joiner or a member of book discussion groups, but the conventions made me look at the usually isolated concept of reading books as an act that made me a member of a wider community, people I was a part of even if I didn't actually know them. And most of the writers had been fans long before they were published, so they never lost site of what it could mean to have long, friendly conversations with the people who had inspired you. I still recall once running into Clifford D. Simak at a convention when he wasn't in a rush to get anywhere else: he remembered me well from previous meetings and asked how I was doing these days, and as a longtime newspaperman expressed pained sympathy when I told him I was working as a proofreader, then signed my book "To Joe, an old friend and faithful reader". It doesn't get much cooler than that. Or the time I met Joe Haldeman (award-winning author of "The Forever War" and many others) while wearing some political buttons he happened to agree with, and the fascinating conversation about those issues that followed. I don't know of any other fields of writing that would have offered me opportunities like that.

Am I saying all science fiction and fantasy is terriffic? Of course not. I'm fully in agreement with Sturgeon;'s law, first expressed by legendary s.f. writer Theodore Sturgeon. For those of you not familiar with it: Sturgeon once said in an interview that 90 percent of science fiction was crud. A later interviewer, not quite believing that a writer who made such a high reputation in that field could have said that, asked him if he really meant it. He responded with what has since become known as Sturgeon's Law: "90 percent of EVERYTHING is crud". That's 90 percent of mysteries, 90 percent of war stories, 90 percent of poetry and drama... for that matter, 90 percent of architecture. The best in ANY field is always going to be in the minority... that's what makes it stand out. But the best science fiction and fantasy can easily stand up against the best any other kind of writing has to offer, with characterization and plot as strong as any other field... though in many cases, a bit more imagination, and plenty to say about the contemporary world we live in.

Tastes vary according to individuals, of course, and completely aside from people who sarcastically put down science fiction and fantasy just because they don't understand it, there will be those whose tastes simply don't run in those areas. Which is fine... I'd never want to live in a world where everyone has the same likes and dislikes and the same approaches to life. But fantasy is probably the oldest kind of literature that still exists, and while science fiction is much more recent, it's established a strong enough popular hold that it's clearly going to be us for a long, long time. Certainly enough time for some of the people who THINK they don't like it to realize it's a wide enough field that there's almost certainly something in it for them. And we'll be ready for them when that happens. It's like Rod Serling once told us... "There's always room for one more"....

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I don't claim that these are THE ten best books in science fiction and fantasy, If I set out to compile that specific list I'm sure there would be some of these titles on it, along with some different ones. But these are just titles that came immediately to mind when I tried to think of some of the books in these fields that have moved me or made me think the most. They're a very small introduction to s.f. and fantasy, at least as I see it. Individual readers will of course have their own ideas of where to go from here, as they should.

"The Martian Chronicles"... Ray Bradbury

"City"... Clifford D. Simak

"Time Storm"... Gordon R. Dickson

"Little Brother"... Cory Doctorow

"Good Omens"... Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

"Shatterday"... Harlan Ellison

"American Gods"... Neil Gaiman

"Soul Music"... Terry Pratchett

"To Say Nothing Of The Dog"... Connie Willis

"Divine Misfortune"... A. Lee Martinez