Science Fiction, Fantasy and Gateways

I started into the world of Science Fiction early, with Star Trek  and Star Wars. (For the record, I eschew the whole Trek vs. Wars debate. They're both amazingly awesome and that's the end of that.) My first four friends, and I believe I've mentioned this here before, were named James T. Kirk, Leonard McCoy, Spock and Mike Boldt. He lived around the block from me.

My first experience with Star Trek was when my mom took me to the movies to see Return of the Jedi. She knew I'd love it. I was six and it was great. Green dudes, guys in funky robes, giant ugly worm, things, and a woman in a really sexy outfit that I was too young to properly enjoy made my day. As I got older, I watched the first two, then got them on VHS, then went to see the Specials Editions...

Yeah I was hooked. I actually got into Star Trek at an even earlier age.

I watched my first episode of Star Trek the day my parents brought me home from the hospital, or so my old man used to say. I have no clear recollection having been a couple of days old at the time, but that's what I was told. Watching that set me on an adventure at the library: I searched for works of Science Fiction. I checked all of the old log books out of the library and started looking for other stuff. 

It wasn't long before the librarian at the local public library handed me a copy of Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy. I spent the next twenty-five years trying to find that book and remember what the name of the author was. By the time I wandered on to the old Baen's Bar forum site, I figured I'd be lucky if anyone even recognized it. Oops. Way to go, Jimbo. That book is an SF classic. But how did I know that? I was just a kid when I read it, and neither of parents read SF, so they couldn't help.

You all get to listen to me blather on about my love of Science Fiction literature because that came from watching TV and the movies. One day Star Trek, the next day Heinlein and then some Asimove (I picked Robots and Empire up at a used book table at a rummage sale.) and then just random stuff until I happened upon a Catherine Asaro novel and started following her. (It occurs to me that she deserves a review here. I don't think I've done one. Oops.) And then, one day, someone came along and mentioned this Weber guy and his Honor Harrington series and there was Baen..

Yeah, it was fate.

And yes, I get that Star Wars is Science Fantasy NOW. I didn't then. See the next paragraph.

With fantasy, it was a little different. I didn't really know there was such a thing as a fantasy genre. See, I'm a certified fogey and borderline curmudgeon. When I was a kid, Fantasy books were shelved separate from SF and the library, as it still does, shelved fiction alphabetically by author. I had no clue there was such a thing as fantasy. No one talked about it, really. Remember, this was before the internet went big time and there were no websites, no Jimbo's no IO9, nothing. You learned about things through word of mouth and/or accidental exposure.

True story time: Once, when I was a wee little Jimbo attending Anchor Bay Elementary School (I think. I went to four different elementary schools.) we had a movie day and they played an animated movie named The Hobbit. No, not the Peter Jackson hackjob that took place a decade or so ago, a honest to goodness cartoon. I watched it, and I walked around singing this song for the next six months at least: 

Here's the thing though: At no point did I associate the movie with a genre or even a book. It wasn't until I hit high school and went for a stroll through the stacks looking from something readable (because the crap they give us in class wasn't, at least no voluntarily) and I came across a copy of the book that I knew it existed. Even then, it took the little star on the front with the words "Now an animated feature film." or something written on the front to assure me that I had the right book.

So I read the thing. It was *GASP* better than the movie. I went back to the library and asked the librarian, whose name I have forgotten because I suck, if she had anything else written by the same author. 

She looked like I had slapped her. "Haven't you read the Lord of the Rings?"

"The what?"

For the first of at least two times in my life, I was led by hand to the book I needed on the shelf and handed all three books. She said "I know you. Take all three. That way I won't see you for a few days."

So I did. And, like a lot of other nerds I was known to carry a novel around with me in case class got boring. My buddy Jeff saw me reading one of them one day (No, I don't remember which one. It's been over thirty years. Your bad.) and asked if I liked fantasy. My response was, "Like what?" And then he asked me if I like stuff like LoTR. Of course I did. That's why I was reading it. So he handed me a copy of Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. It was the first book in the Dragonlance Chronicles. Somewhere in there I went from liking to loving. Probably about the time THOSE DIRTY STURM KILLERS KILLED STURM. Don't worry. I'll get over it.Probably. I mean maybe. 

I think that must be when I realized that I had meant it when I said I had to be a writer. It's something I had wanted before but in the way every kid talks about what they want to be when the grew up.

You see, that death messed with me on a couple of levels. I was about a year away from losing the first person I was close to and Sturm's death hit me almost like the death of someone I actually knew. but there was something else: I had labeled those books "Sooooo predictable." because it was obvious that the good guys were going to win, and they did, and that Sturm would be the big hero and lead the parade in front of the Knights of Solamnia and gain all the laurels...

And now he was dead. They had written in wrong. I think I was probably as offended as I was dismayed. And listen folks, there has never been anyone in the world who was as convinced as I was that I had the story right. I had to write something that made sense.

Of course, I finished writing that in a bit two hours and it was no where near as long involved or well written as what the actual people who really got paid to write the story. Go figure. It's almost like I, with the hubris of a know it all teenager, wasn't as good at it as someone who actually knew what they were doing. Of course, that's thirty-plus years of hindsight later. At the time, I was wrong, they were right and the fact that they had written what would still be my favorite fantasy trilogy all these years later had nothing to do with anything.

I guess my point here is this: We need to make sure we're showing these things to those who come after us if we want to preserve our hobby. It's easier now than I ever dreamed of it being when I was a kid, too. Seriously, they make comic book movies now. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a powerful tool of geek creation if used correctly. Kindle Unlimited makes the literary side of things easier as well. Of course, all of those Wars and Trek movies are still out there and they're making more now! I haven't seen this much new Trek  available ever! It's an exciting time. 

And none of that covers my love of gaming, but that's a different story for a different day. That's a pretty awesome part of geekdom as well. 

Seriously folks, kids, grandkids, your friend at work who isn't into the Kardashians and needs some real entertainment, they need this kind of thing. It's weird that geeky things are popular now, but it's good. Our hobby has always been the place where the people who didn't fit, fit. We need to keep it alive for future generations of misfits. Geekdom won't be popular forever. Those kids are going to need somewhere to retreat to and we need to make sure we've saved that space.