Why Sci-Fi?

And, just as a point of explanation, I usually abhor the abbreviation 'sci-fi' (although this has more to do with the media's [mis-]use of it that anything else) but I thought it would made for a nice sounding title.

So what is it about sf that appeals to me (and fantasy and horror, which are all generally part of the same genre which I like to call 'the fantastique' if that doesn't sound too pretentious)?

A lot of it, I think, has to go back to my childhood. As I've said elsewhere, the eighties was a prime stomping ground for sf and fantasy films and, to my mind, the genre's childrens shows (He-Man and the Masters Of The Universe, Thundercats, The Mysterious Cities of Gold among others) have never been bettered. That may be nostalgia talking, but I have since gone out and bought episodes on DVD and in the harsh light of day, with the critical eye of a 28 year old, they still hold up. Not all of them, I have to say. Dungeons and Dragons falls flat on its face, for instance, but then, even as a kid, I knew Uni the Unicorn was the most irritating character on TV. I think only the sixties have a claim of better telefantasy for kids and that is primarily down to Gerry Anderson. Mention must also go to Batman: The Animated Series which is quite possibly the greatest cartoon ever produced and which did an almost unprecedented thing; it introduced a character in Harley Quinn who subsequently appeared in the comics.

This exposure at a very early age to the tropes - even if they were dealt with in a basic way - that are the foundations of sf, rewired my brain in such a way that ftl travel, cloning and aliens are as normal to me as going down the pub. My mother and my sister, conversely, never having had this education (if that is indeed the proper word for it) simply cannot comprehend most of it. My sister, for example, loves the Harry Potter books. She also loves Stephen King novels. She cannot, however, get into King's Dark Tower series, to my mind his greatest achievement, because they are, and I quote "too fantasy". And Harry Potter is kitchen sink drama? I reply, sarcastically. But I understand her point of view, in a way. The Harry Potter novels, despite dealing with magic and the like, are set primarily in a world that is just like ours. Potter gets the train to Hogwarts from London. It may be a London that occasionally gets buzzed by wizards who should know better, but it's a London with its Burger Kings and Odeon and Buckingham Palace all the same.

Which is part of the reason I like sf so much. It is so obviously not of this world. It's escapism. It's fabulation. It's metaphor. One of the things most 'literary' critics don't understand is that sf is a genre that can both entertain and inform at the same time. Star Trek, now famous as the Great American Metaphor, was a great part of my upbringing. From the movies - usually on a wet Sunday afternoon on ITV when the cricket had been rained off, to the triple 6pm whammy that BBC2 concocted in the mid-nineties of TNG on a Wednesday, DS9 on a Thursday and the original series on a Friday.

I slipped away from sf in my mid-teens, convinced that I ought to be seeking out something more serious. I think a lot of people do this. They convince themselves of the essential childishness of sf and pack it away. The emerging niche culture of today makes that all too easy. Back in the days of only four channels, SF was something that was just there. Now, with a few notable exceptions (Doctor Who being responsible for most of these, good and bad) your SF fix is holed away somewhere on cable and satellite. Sanctuary and Dollhouse, two big American shows, are hidden away on ITV4 on a Monday night. Because they know that if sf fans want to see them, they will seek them out. We're not lazy like your average viewer. But in my mid-teens, I wandered away and I found the world of movies. I discovered Scorsese and DePalma and Easy Rider and Francois Truffaut and the sublime brilliance of Breathless. I even went to do a degree in Film and Media at university. But something happened.

In my late teens, just prior to my parents divorcing and for quite some time after that, I began to suffer from acute depression. There were numerous factors for it, none of which are really suitable for airing in a public blog, but suffice it to say, the one thing that brought me out of it, that made me somewhat less depressed was sf. I subsequently completed my final year dissertation on feminism in Doctor Who (and remember this is before the Rose Tyler Revolution so my conclusion basically ran "whatever intentions the programme makers had in positive female portrayals were subsumed by the structure and content of the story") and wrote a fair bit of Doctor Who fan fiction. And I was home.

Sf to me is like the best pair of jeans you could possibly own. Because it makes me feel comfortable and good and I enjoy it. I enjoy it more than I do anything else, genre-wise. It's an emotional reaction, I grant you, and one that is far from readily quantifiable, but it is also true. Sf has followed me from infancy to the present day and still interests and excites me with its constantly state of evolution. I could not have imagined, even ten years ago, a computer game so engrossing and so complex as Mass Effect. But here we are, when the sequel is due in six weeks time and the most wanted thing on my pre-order list.

It's not so much about the science (although a great deal of great sf has been written by scientists, one of my favourites being Timescape by Gregory Benford) it's about the possibility of discovery, of seeing and experiencing things far outside the realms or human imagination. And sometimes it's about Robot Chicken because what would sf be if it couldn't take the piss out of itself?