thehowe_v7.1

I realized something recently about science fiction fans. When you have a conversation with them about their favorite science fiction, the vast majority of them will cite movies or TV shows: Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. These are all excellent shows, but people, I have news for you: there is far better science fiction out there.

The problem is that the vast majority of SciFi. that makes it onto film or TV is very mainstream. Take a classic story, give some of the characters blue skin, pointy ears, and ray guns, and you've got your typical mainstream SciFi. I'm not saying those shows aren't good, they're some of my favorites. I'm just saying that those shows are to good science fiction as a big wheel is to a corvette.

Now, if you want to read some really good science fiction, I can suggest several excellent authors. Asimov's Foundation Novels of course, are a classic that examines the impacts of both society and individuals on the long-term fate of the human race. C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner novels provide one of the best representations of truly inhuman aliens that I've ever read. Dan Simmons' Hyperion novels explore a number of interesting ideas, from time travel to artificial intelligence to the long-term viability of the human species. Several of Vernor Vinge's novels touch on interesting subjects such as the idea of the Singularity.

I guess it makes me kind of a science fiction snob to say that the only good SciFi is in books, but I really think it's true. I'd strongly encourage anybody who likes science fiction movies and TV shows to give one of the authors I mentioned a try. They're all well worth reading.

On the walk (more like hike) home tonight, I came to a fundamental realization about myself: the unifying attribute of my favorite activities is and always has been their function as a means of escape.

Consider my favorite activities as a child: action figures, dungeons and dragons, comic books, and cartoons. Whilst playing with my action figures I would construct elaborate stories and power struggles. I did not play to model some real-world system (as in "playing house" or whatever it is girls do with their barbies), but instead constructed alternate realities into which I could escape and control. Similarly, dungeons and dragons games with my dad provided escape to an alternate world. Passively, the more obvious examples of comic books and cartoons served the same purpose. I was never and am still not the kind of person that looks for meaningful real-world analogies in my comics and cartoons (and those kinds of people do exist). A good story set in a sufficiently interesting world has always been enough.

Moving into my early teens, my primary interests shifted towards reading. For me, reading has been perhaps my most obvious means of escape throughout my life. The hallmark of a good book in my estimates is one that totally draws me into its world; even in middle school the best books would draw me in so deeply that I would regularly lose track of three or more hours at a time. Many people enjoy reading non-fiction works, or analyzing the underlying messages of their reading. In contrast, I almost always take the world presented to me at face value, and exclusively prefer fictional works - the less like the real world, the better. On the other hand, literary worlds that are not sufficiently complex quickly lose my interest no matter how fantastical they are. All of the top works on my bookshelf (Shannara, Wheel of Time, and others) define incredibly elaborate fantasies that I can escape to for days on end.

I have many interests, so I won't enumerate them all here. Suffice to say, every interest of mine that I can think of is interesting primarily in its function as a means of escape. The logical extension of this realization is that, if I wish to institute any meaningful change in my life, I must present it to myself in the form of a means of escape. This explains why I have been so unsuccessful in adopting an exercise regimen that I can sustain. In high school, I enjoyed swimming because in a sense, when I entered the pool I was escaping to an alternate world where I was physically superior (interestingly, although I swam for a long time I never really enjoyed it until I got good at it). I have never enjoyed running, and now I see why: it is too rooted in the real world. How can I escape while paying attention to my aches and pains and the terrain and the weather and all the other factors that fill my mind when running? Similarly, it explains why I enjoy the comparably arduous tasks of canoing and hiking: they are quite literally escapes from my everyday life.

This is a fundamental realization, and if properly applied could have profound effects. I must consider the matter further.

Well, here I am, sitting at my computer at 1:30 A.M. again. In the week since I've been home I've devoured three good books I've been meaning to read and a computer game I got off a buddy at college, but now I'm out of things to do. Maybe I'll read some of the so-so books I've been putting off for awhile. Sometimes I think that my love for reading is almost a curse. I mean, a really good book is the kind that totally sucks you in and takes you to another world for a few hours. Is this any different from alcohol or drugs? Reading's a way to escape the real world just as surely as drugs and booze are. Sure, reading doesn't kill you like they do, but I'm a perfect example of how too much reading and not enough human interaction can lead to social ineptness. Ah well, I guess everybody has to have their own way to escape from this bitch of a life for a little while. Luckily, mind doesn't happen to be one of the life-threatening ones.

On a totally different topic, it's interesting how I never end up writing what I intend to in these things. I was going to talk about how I've been reading more lately so I don't have to think about some of the less pleasant memories I associate with Ovid-Elsie, and I end up writing about the addictive effects of reading. Or something. Hell, I don't even understand what I wrote, so I certainly don't expect you too. Oh screw it, I'm going to bed.