My Love of Science Fiction

How It Began

I’ve always loved Sci-fi. As a child of the 80’s my main influence was obviously Star Wars, but I fully embraced the incredible post Star Wars craze as well when every production company seemingly brought out their own budget takes and version of the instant classic. Thanks to my movie loving dad, I got to watch plenty of them.

My favourite was a Roger Corman produced flick called Space Raiders––I must have watched that movie a hundred times––but I also loved Arena (which I would love to remake in some way), Battle Beyond the Stars, Flash Gordon, Ice Pirates, and many many more. Anything with matte paintings, miniatures, and models, I was there. (I miss those days)

Also, back then the original Lost in Space and Land of the Giants was on TV around the same time as our Sunday roast, so I watched those multiple times too, before getting into things like V, and eventually Star Trek. (I say eventually but I was still only about 10 when I first watched Next Gen.)

Expanding My Knowledge

The older I got, the more I began to watch the classics of the genre, everything from Logan’s Run, Close Encounters, 2001 Space Odyssey, and Forbidden Planet, to Soylent Green, West World, Silent Running and the relatively more recent Ghost in the Shell. If it was Sci-Fi, I’d watch it. It didn’t matter the sub-genre. It could be my favourite Space Opera… or any of the others: Cyberpunk, Hard Sci-fi, Dystopian, Sci-fi horror… I happily consumed all of it, and always wanted more.

I started reading Science Fiction then as well. My early main influences were Arthur C Clarke’s Rama Series, and Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars books. Again, I later got into reading a lot of the classics too (and my intention is to reread a lot of them over the next few years and chat about them within my Review Section)

When I started scriptwriting at the beginning of the 2000’s nearly everything I watched was Sci-Fi as it was the most amazing time to be a fan of the genre––especially with the TV output. (Although there was also the life changing Matrix movie as well)

Farscape was my absolute favourite, but I loved SG1, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Lexx, Firefly, Space Above and Beyond, and had a soft spot for the first two seasons of Andromeda. I vividly remember writing a sci-fi show with a friend at that time––I use the term writing loosely as it’s almost unreadable now––and thinking how I could write Science Fiction for ever…

…and then, I didn’t. Not a single movie, TV show, or book in the twenty plus years since.

The Sci-Fi Gap

I’m not sure what the reason was, but the moment I got better at writing I immediately switched to Horror, writing zombie movies and exploitation flicks. I started creating slashers and cannibal stories, and ended up writing a whole bunch of horror scripts before moving on to horror books. Somewhere along the way, Sci-fi got lost.

I think the Sci-fi genre itself was dying out a few years after those shows ended, and horror was definitely in––and was always a genre I loved too––so it made more sense to pursue horror. I really enjoyed writing horror, and playing within the extremes of the genre. But, all these years on, as I’ve entered my forty, I can’t help but wonder what happened to my sci-fi ambitions.

How have I managed to not write a single Sci-Fi in all these years? (outside of some notes for a sci-fi horror might I might go back to at some point) I still watch and read the genre all the time––albeit mostly older stuff, with the massive exception of the brilliant Space Sweepers and The Expanse––which makes the decision not to write in it all the more baffling.

Return To Sci-Fi

But now, it’s time to change that, and in a big way! Of all the Sci-Fi sub-genres I love, Space Opera is the one i’m always drawn back too. The world building, the scope of the stories, the simple notion of good versus evil. I love the canvas Space Opera offers, and the stories which can be told.

So, I’ve began writing a Space Opera series of books. I’m not going to go into much detail yet, but I will say that its’s a little bit of a slow burn, and ridiculously ambitious. I may later regret the scope and size, but I’m going to have a lot of fun creating it. Hopefully it’s not to corny to say, but it feels like a lifetime in the making. I was meant to do this.

This Blog

My intention with this blog is for it to run alongside my writing and reviews. To use it not only to discuss my work, but have conversations––with myself––about different aspect of the genre, and the pro’s and con’s of self publishing. It will be my own personal writers journal, which I’ll share with anyone who wants to read.

I’ll try to write something every week for the blog, but i’m not holding myself to that. In the past I would have, but my health isn’t what it used to be and I want to prioritise my book writing. With that said, I really do hope I get to write plenty within the blog too as I have a fair bit to say.

So, it’s time to finally get my Sci-Fi career started. Hope some of you join me on the adventure.