Science fiction did have a powerful effect on me in my formative years.
I am no anoraked geek (sorry, anoraked geeks, but you know what I mean - you're so maligned), and SF is no obsession with me - but as a child/young teenager, I still remember the effect and haunting power of certain TV serials and dramas. The Wednesday Play, for example, was a must in our house, and many of those seemed extraordinarily powerful to me at the time.
But talking SF - I remember "Quatermass and the Pit" as having the most powerful and extraordinary effect on me - which I describe elsewhere... and "A for Andromeda" which was somehow sexily disturbing... and there was another extraordinarily powerful series of late night dramas (I think it was called "Out of this World!) adapting famous SF stories - one of which was "Little Lost Robot" by Isaac Asimov. And another called "Cold Equations" which I remember (from how long ago?!) starred Peter Wyngarde as an astronaut travelling to a Moon base, and finding himself with a girl stowaway, simply along to see her spaceman brother, whom, horribly and tragically, Wyngarde has to ask to step outside(!) - i.e. sacrifice herself, to enable the ship to get to its destination! That one haunts me to this day.
As I've got older, the effect has probably lessened - probably due to weaker derivatives and successors, and other things in my life. But, as you can see, those formative dramatic experiences have stayed with me for 40 - 50 years.
I watch less of everything now than I used to - life simply seems to short. But I acknowledge that SF has been, and probably remains, a very good platform for exploring ideas - metaphorically, realistically, or both - and, yes, I still enjoy the odd bit of fantasy SF involving runaway technology, or even the odd rampant alien! SF can truly mess with your head, or just carry you away, to another time, another place. But then, isn't that the mark of any effective piece of drama or creative writing?
The My Science Fiction Life site is now closed to contributions. From this page you can see an archive of all the recollections made by this user.
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