AirLockAlpha.com

Michael Hinman, the owner of Airlock Alpha and some other pretty darn cool Web sites, offered me the opportunity to take on the challenge of a monthly column, so here I am.

Some people here will already know me because I’ve been in science-fiction fandom for quite a while. Those of you whom I’ve not met will get to know me through my postings, if you choose to keep reading.

This month, I’m giving you some background so you’ll understand why I have chosen to write about the fannish life.

For as long as I can remember, and that’s a pretty long time, I’ve loved tales of derring-do, magical beings and other worlds.

As a child, I imagined myself a space traveler who not only visited other planets but other times and dimensions. Being the proverbial geeky girl in glasses, my social life in secondary school was less than abundant.That being said, I always had friends and because they were in that outcast spaceship with me, we were still playing make-believe in our teens. Had “Dungeons & Dragons” or LARPs existed then, we’d have been spending our out of school time on those pursuits.

“Star Trek,” the original series, began about the same time I started my senior year in high school. My father and stepmother loved it. While it was shown on Monday nights in most markets, it was shown on Friday night after “The Wild Wild West” where I lived and our whole family was there to watch it every week. Whenever William Shatner took off his shirt (which we all know he did frequently), my stepmother, who was usually lying on the couch in mismatched pajama elements and toilet paper wrapped around her head to protect her hairdo, would say, “That man has such a good body.” What my father thought of this and what my stepmother would think if she knew I was writing about it, I don’t know, but it’s a standout memory for me.

The main library in my home town had a “browsing section” that was full of short story collections that contained stories by authors such as Fredric Brown, Isaac Asimov and Theodore Sturgeon. Although I’d been reading those stories for years, I didn’t know there was a science-fiction genre till my first semester of freshman English in college. In our literature book there was an excerpt from The Martian Chronicles. The funny thing was that even then, I didn’t connect those short stories I’d been reading with science-fiction. They were just weird, good stories.

In my junior year of college, I met my husband who was, and still is, an avid science-fiction fan. Doing what those do who want to foster a relationship with someone, I started reading things he suggested. After reading the Harlan Ellison collection The Beast Who Shouted Love at the World and Other Stories and Farnham's Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein, it finally dawned on me that I’d been a science-fiction fan pretty nearly all my life.

Now that oh so many years have passed since my science-fiction epiphany. I still love those stories of adventures in space, time travel and science that so very often is not fiction for very long. I see a lot of science-fiction movies and television shows and I enjoy being a part of the fannish community that has grown up around science-fiction.

My current fan activities have me involved in the yearly science-fiction, fantasy and horror convention Necronomicon, a small fan fiction/television show-oriented gathering called Vidcon and Oasis, another Florida sci-fi con, as a panel participant and sometimes costume contest emcee.

I am a member of the Stone Hill Science Fiction Association which I helped found 31 years ago as well.

I can’t imagine not being a fan. It’s not all of who I am, but it’s a big part of my life and I love it. My attic is full of costumes. There are “Star Trek” and “Addams Family” Barbies in my living room. I’ve had filks and fanfic published, and I’ve a head full of book, television and movie trivia. I’m a geek girl and a fan girl and I’m glad of it.

Science-fiction fans are the best. They are smart, funny, curious, giving, kind and loving people. They also sometimes have Web sites for which they are willing to take on new columnists like me.

I’m happy to be here and I’ll be back next month with recommendations for some great books, movies, games and TV for new fans and those who’ve been around a while.

Peace and long life to you.