I have a love of sci-fi that began further back than I can remember. I do remember, as a five-year old (1977), loving the TV ads for STAR WARS, reading the STAR WARS Marvel comics, and watching anything vaguely weird, futuristic and/or frightening that was on TV at the time. My Dad used to wake me up late, and he and I would sneak downstairs and watch old Hammer movies or the Hammer House of Horror TV series with tea and toast. These are my most treasured memories. The items I will be writing about all mean something to me in a nostalgic / emotional sense, as I think sci-fi fans relate to the genre more emotionally than, say, an action fan does to action movies. Great sci-fi is great sci-fi, and great sci-fi will inspire and involve and challenge and perplex and confuse and reward and enfold you in a million different ways; but for me, it reminds me of my dear old Dad, who went beyond the Final Frontier (death, not space!) in 1993, and who is most alive in my memory when I see anything that reminds me of him. Sci-fi is many things to me, but most of all, it's my Dad's way of showing me he loved me.
And it's a gold bikini, it's Jenny Agutter in furs, it's lightsabers and Battlestars and the end of the world and Quatermass and ghosts and monsters and Doctor Who and flying cars and spaceships and aliens (the scarier the better) and bravery and honour and thoughtlessness and paranoia and love conquering all and grandeur and a sense of our own insignificance in the whole of time and space, and how, if you look at it right, that means that everything we do is of the utmost importance - because humanity is a millisecond's blink in God's eye and we better make the most of it! But above all, sci-fi is hope: hope for a tomorrow, and everything that it might contain. Watch the skies!
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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