sci-fied

Since childhood I have had an almost instinctual revulsion to anything related to science fiction. The blame I attribute almost entirely to my father.

I recall so many afternoons coming inside from playing, or settling down from dinner, to head to the couch to watch some television, only to find my dad had already overtaken it with ancient episodes of Star Trek. Oh, the theme song. Oh, the "Captains Log"s. I still remember the different varieties -- Deep Space Nine, Voyager. Oh, how I sighed. "DAAAAD! This is SO BORING! Can't we watch something COOL?!" I sulked and moaned, but he was hooked. "Sweetie, this IS cool! You just don't get it!"

My father's love of science fiction doesn't end with Star Trek. He also loves Star Wars, and has recounted his story of the excitement of watching it in the theater and how the graphics were so surreal and mindblowing (for the time) to me so.many.times. His first favorite book was The Hobbit.


So it's always been a point of pride of mine to turn down anything science-fiction related, to shrug it off as "geeky," to tease my dad about being such a big stinking nerd.

But lately, it seems my afore-dreaded sci-fi is all I'm reading. First it was 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami, a tale of parallel universes and star-crossed lovers, featuring elf-like creatures and double-moons. Then there was the Hunger Games, which was, I almost hate to admit, fast and fun and exciting, even with all the futuristic and dystopian setting. Now I'm on to Brave New World, which my boyfriend picked up at the used book store a while back. I picked it up last night at about 1 am, right after reading Hunger Games, my appetite for other worlds insatiable. Despite my sleepiness, I could NOT put it down.

For all its space-iness and futuristicness, it has so many amazing truths. So many beautiful ideas to chew on. Every couple lines I feel I have to pause to digest what was said. I don't want to miss a lick of it. What a heavy piece about the human condition. Written in 1931 and just as true now (if not more) than it is then.

All hail science fiction!