Friday Night Excitement
Okay, so maybe it isn’t clubbing, or going to a Broadway Show in New York, but for a writer a Friday night S.F. club meeting where we discussed books was nicely exciting. The club chair had added the extra element of telling the group what got you into science fiction, and then how books you’d read in 2007 compared with that sense of wonder of those first books. I noticed several interesting things. The younger members of the club all came to science fiction through film and television first. Books came later. But notice _that they came_!
By contrast the highlight of the evening was Jack Speer, who is a member of First Fandom, talking about the first S.F. book he ever read. Jack was born in 1920, and the first book in the field he read was a Tom Swift novel, and he had the 1920’s hardcover for show and tell. He then talked about Burroughs THE GODS OF MARS, and he ended with the current book he’d just finished, ILIUM by Dan Simmons. He pointed out how everyone of these works spanning eighty years all ended with a shameless plug to buy and read the sequel. He was wonderful.
On Saturday I was visiting with Pat Rogers, a luminous lady and one of the forces behind our terrific club and excellent convention, and she was laughing because she said it was like a revival meeting and we were all testifying. Someone would say, “The first science fiction book I read was Have Spacesuit by Heinlein, and everyone would start clapping and saying his name. Alfred Bester — give me an amen! Edger Rice — praise his name!
I do wonder if other genres have this sense of history and continuity. Granted this has only been going on for eighty years and we’ll have to see if we’ve got legs, but it was a fascinating and wonderful evening.
Melinda