How My Love of Sci-fi Evolved

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 as everyone 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 around the same time as our Sunday roast, so I watched all of them 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, and Forbidden Planet, to Soylent Green, West World, Silent Running and the more recent Ghost in the Shell. If it was Sci-Fi, I’d watch it. It didn’t matter the sub-genre, whether it was my favourite Space Opera, or: Cyberpunk, Hard Sci-fi, Dystopian, Sci-fi horror… I happily consumed all of it and always wanted more.

I started reading Science Fiction as well, with my early big influences there 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 hopefully chat about them on this blog)

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 had 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 remember writing a sci-fi show with a friend, (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.

The Sci-Fi Gap

I’m not sure what the reasons were, but the moment I got better at writing I 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 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 pass forty I can’t help but wonder what happened to my sci-fi ambitions.

How have I not written a single Sci-Fi in all these years? Especially as 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.)

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 it’s ridiculously ambitious, and I may 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 to cover both the Sci-fi i’m rewatching and reading, while chatting a little about my writing process and the books themselves. Sometime’s i’ll try and combine the two, especially if what i’m watching has directly influenced my words in some way.

I’d love to write about some of my favourite characters, shows, movies, and experiences, while also talking about the book i’m working on, or how a certain chapter came to be.

I’m generally a pretty positive person so I won’t be writing about the sci-fi I don’t like for the most part (although I may have the occasional rant) but I love the idea of sharing all the stuff I love with all of you.

So you can expect plenty of talk about all things classic sci-fi, along with some of the more obscure stuff I adore.