The Path to Science Fiction

June 24th, 2009

My parents set up my first science fiction experience.   They called me into the living room when I was about six (1974 give or take) and told me that they had a surprise for me.   They then turned on the TV and there was Star Trek.

Little did my parents, or myself, realize what happened on that day.

My first real science fiction novel was Philip Jose Farmer’s A Private Cosmos, in second grade, which I’ve written about before when Farmer recently passed from this world.

Third grade was the year of Star Wars.   I was there opening night with my family.   Standing in a long line waiting to get in, we were handed “May the Force Be With You” buttons.   We had no clue what the hell that meant.   A very innocent time.

In sixth grade, I was reading the Dune trilogy (it was still only a triolgy then I believe).   I did an oral book report about Dune Messiah and was probably the only one in the room besides the teacher who knew the word “concubine.”   Science fiction is great for the vocabulary.   Unfortunately, the teacher suggested previewing my future book reports.

I started writing my own science fiction in grade school, with my first real effort in sixth grade.   Pretty terrible stuff.   I was ripping off John Carter of Mars and worse, ripoffs of John Carter of Mars.   We all start somewhere.

There was Battlestar Galactica, and V, and Logan’s Run, and a hundred other movies, TV shows, and books.   I remember reading Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of Alien in bed and it scarring the crap out of me (about 5th or 6th grade).   I never got enough, and still don’t.

There was my Farmer phase, my Frank Herbert phase, my Heinlein phase, my Asimov phase, my Piers Anthony phase (I admit it!), my Anne McCaffery phase, my Michael Moorcock phase, my Pohl phase, my Poul Anderson phase, my David Brin phase, my Orson Scott Card phase, and my Simmons phase.   I read books I probably now don’t even remember they ever existed.

My first Worldcon was in New Orleans in 1988, but I didn’t know how to do a con.   I went from panel to panel chasing my heroes, trying to catch a glimpse of them all, and met almost no one.

There was always a little writing here and there.   A story for an English class.   A dungeon for a D&D game.   Just a project of my own.   I wrote stories and made my first submissions in college.   I only got serious about writing after finishing my classes in graduate school, and Clarion West in 1994 was the flood gates opening for me, when I felt like I became part of the community instead of just an outside observer.

At a Worldcon party in 1995, Fred Pohl stumbled and fell next to me, and I helped him stand up.   My god!   In such a small way, that was totally cool.

After my first novel came out in 2003, I attended a convention in San Diego and got invited out to dinner with Gregory Benford, David Brin, David Gerrold, and Vernor Vinge, and treated as the new guy on the team.   They told me they didn’t say anything nearly as important or interesting as James Blish, Harlan Ellison, or any of those old greats they hung out with when they were first breaking in.   Well, I found the whole thing very gracious and intensely interesting.

Now sometimes it’s strange.   I have friends who broke in with me, more or less, and who have won awards and are much read.   We talk about this thing or that thing, bitch about this publisher or that obnoxious writer, and sometimes the magic seems, if not gone, a little less bright.

But to tell the truth, whenever I catch a glimpse of an episode of Star Trek from the original series, the magic is back.   I’m six again, and the universe is very, very big.

I hope that never changes, because that’s really what science fiction is all about.

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