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SPACED OUT
My father was an avid science fiction fan and the cupboard by the fireplace that served as a storage cupboard, (we didn’t have any bookshelves), overflowed with a motley collection of magazines. Astounding, Amazing, Unknown and many others all dedicated to the wonderful imaginary worlds and adventures lurking in space.
I was born during the Great Depression and my father was a coalminer. There was no money to spare for new books, but for a few coppers, cardboard boxes of mixed books and magazines could be bought from second-hand stalls at the market, and from these our library was drawn.
As a young child I don’t think I ever had fairy story books, but I clearly recall sitting on my father’s knee while he read to me of rocket ships and ray guns. Carried to my bed, my dreams were filled with Martian monsters, and space-suited heroes saving Earth from extinction. I think the Arabian Nights would have been dull by comparison
With ready access to the fireside cupboard and a weekly dose of Flash Gordon at the local Saturday afternoon matinee, it was not surprising that by the time I was ten years old, I too had become a devout science fiction reader. It didn’t matter that Flash walked easily on the outside of his rocket ship, or that his helmet was nothing more than a glass fish bowl, there was no one to shatter my illusions.
In the early 1940s a new writer began to appear in the magazines - Isaac Asimov. Originally, he had no intention of making a career out of writing but rather to use it as a method of making a little extra money. Pulp magazines paid one cent a word at most - a cent and a quarter with bonus[1] Nevertheless, by 1949 he had become established as the world’s foremost living science fiction writer
and I one of his most devoted fans.
Man’s landing on the moon appeared to coincide with the demise of science fiction writing as I knew it. No longer could the imagination be piqued by what might exist on the moon because truth had taken the fun out of speculation - credibility had become an issue.
My older son watched the landing on television at school, and was more interested in the space craft than anything else - he eventually became a motor mechanic.
Younger son watched the landing on television at kindergarten and promptly decided that it would be fun to be an astronaut when he grew up.
As for me, well! If I couldn’t have my science fiction with all the trimmings, I didn’t want ‘science fact’.
As time passed, along with the majority of other families we paid tribute to the Star Wars trilogy, and my daughter went into labour while watching ‘Buck Rogers in the Twenty-First Century’. (She refused to leave the cinema until the film finished). Other than that, there was no emphasis on science fiction in our household although books were plentiful and varied
In his late teens, older son in need of something to read, borrowed a science fantasy book by Terry Brooks from a friend and became well and truly hooked. Non too subtle hints abounded at birthday and Christmas for a particular book of this genre.
Younger son discovered Arthur C Clarke, Asimov and the ‘Gor’ series by John Norman. In my opinion the latter was a pale imitation of the wonderful books about Mars written by Edgar Rice Burroughs devoured by me in my youth, but he enjoyed them. Yes! I know distance lends enchantment, and nothing is ever quite as we remember it - but nevertheless I can’t change my opinion.
After nine years in the army, younger son returned to Melbourne to enter University. Three years later he emerged, the proud owner of a Bachelor of Computing degree (with Distinction). Robert had found his own ‘space’ to explore - Cyberspace.
It is many years since my love affair with science fiction ended but I still enjoy films with a fantasy or scientific theme, and after seeing one such film, I noted that it was based upon a short story by a William Gibson. My search for the book was unsuccessful. A casual remark to my son Robert brought forth the information that he had all William Gibson’s books along with many others of a similar type. I was not disappointed. Here was a new kind of science fiction that revived all the excitement and wonder of my youth. The characters no longer travelled in rocket ships to distant planets instead they used a more sophisticated method of traversing a new venue called Cyberspace. Nevertheless, there were plenty of evil hackers to be defeated and many battles to be fought; and does it really matter if the hero’s ‘virtual reality helmet’ sounded a bit like a bike helmet with wires attached, as he sallied forth to tackle all that black ICE armed only with a virus? There is as yet, no one to tell me that it isn’t possible
I have come to the conclusion that there is a certain kind of writer who retains the unlimited imagination and wonder of the child through to adulthood, and these are the ones who write this very special kind of fiction. It has no permanent name, to me it was Science Fiction, to my sons it is Cyber-science Fiction, and Fantasy Fiction and no doubt my grandchildren will know it by some other name. As scientific fact burns holes in their hypotheses, these authors will continue to discover new universes that man has not yet reached and the magic will live on.