The Lonely Sci-fi Life

I’ve been watching a lot of science fiction TV series lately. Always by myself, since my husband doesn’t like that sort of stuff.

I spent a night on my sofa, binge-watching the 6th season of the Amazon Sci-fi series The Expanse. I had just gotten access to it and was only going to watch the first episode but then I got caught up in it and continued on to the second episode and then the third and by 2am I had finished the entire season. It was only 6 episodes after all. I had been waiting till the season was finished so that I could get all the episodes at the same time – so why not just watch them all at once? It’s just like what happens when you find a great book and just can’t put it down at the end of a chapter but continue reading each chapter after the other until you discover you have either been up all night or the book is done. Which ever comes first.

I also finished watching the Apple TV+ series, Foundation, based on Isaac Asimov’s Foundation books. I watched the first two episodes before the entire series landed. After those 2 episodes, I had very little desire to watch the rest. I spent a large part of those initial episodes exclaiming out loud, in rather bad language, what I thought of them. But I couldn’t hold out, curiosity and hope got the better of me and a few weeks after the first season ended I binged the rest – with lots more bad words escaping from my agonized throat. I decided that Isaac Azimov would be turning in his grave with what they did to his great story. Oh well, that’s what happens when other people think they know better than the original author.

After recovering from Foundation, I watched Disney’s The Mandalorian, mainly because it was there and I had heard about it. I liked The Mandalorian.  Unlike very “woke” Foundation, it was old fashioned space opera sci-fi – with a gun-toting hero, space ships, lots of fast action, and lots of wild west style shootouts. But after the second season it started to get repetitive and boring and began to suffer from the Law of Success, which means producers keep a successful show going even though they have no new ideas for it. So I stopped watching.

In between all these shows, I also watched the second season of The Witcher, which technically isn’t sci-fi but I like looking at Henry Cavill. That’s enough reason for me. And I also like Fantasy…if it’s good fantasy and The Witcher is.

I have been a fan of Science Fiction since before my wisdom teeth came in. I read Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles when I was 11 and by the time I finished high school I had read everything by Bradbury, Asimov, and Heinlein that my dad had on his bookshelf. But this was a long time ago and in the 60s the only people who read that stuff were skinny, pasty-faced guys who were in the A-V club at high school. I wasn’t going to hang out with them. By the end of the 60s, I had taken a detour into Tolkien which lasted until the late-70s when Star Wars came out and sci-fi suddenly became cool. But still no one I knew read Sci-fi. In 1973, The Science Fiction Shop opened in Greenwich Village in New York City. I can’t remember how I heard about it. There was no Google back then. But we were still able to find out about things even without Google. The moment I walked in the door, I knew I had found my place. There in the store amongst the shelves, stood a few weird guys and…me. I mean…the place was filled with science fiction books of all sorts. I was in heaven. I don’t remember if I talked with anyone or if I discussed any particular title on a shelf or any author. But I’m pretty sure I walked out with more than one book in a shopping bag.

Today, Science Fiction has become pretty main stream. People no longer stare at you with a blank gaze or look around for someplace else to be when you mention something to do with Sci-fi. I even once recommended a book by Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game, to an ordinary book discussion group I was a member of for a short time. We discussed it while munching cheese and crackers over wine. The other members seemed to have enjoyed it as much as the eatables. There has even been a Science Fiction Book Shop in Stockholm since the 80s that I go to when I feel indulgent. And it is not just skinny, weird guys that you see in there anymore. Sometimes I even talk to people there.

Very recently, I joined a Science Fiction Book Discussion group. It is run by the English Bookshop here in Stockholm. I’ve been to two electronic video meetings so far. (Just the fact that we can meet and talk with each other via video screens is and of itself sci-fi). While I only managed to read the latest selection (due to joining late not because of laziness), the discussions were animated and very interesting.  While the book I read for the next meeting, might not have been something I might have chosen on my own, I still enjoyed it and being able to discuss it with others was a treat. So I plan on continuing with this group.

After all, we all need to be part of a village – even Science Fiction lovers.