Does Science Fiction still hold that wonder you felt as a twelve year old?

[@secretfirebooks7894]

12 year old Richard was clearly the coolest kid on the block.

[@vintagesf]

@@secretfirebooks7894 Just hadn’t found my people. You made me smile.

[@sciencefictionreads]

I didn't discover that i enjoyed reading/watching Science Fiction until age 24. The past decade feels like my golden age 😅

[@vintagesf]

Living the dream!

[@LiminalSpaces03]

What a great idea for a video! Loved hearing about all the movies you used to watch! Jason would agree with you on all of this, as do I!

[@GrammaticusBooks]

Great video Richard! And I’ll double down on Godzilla Minus One and Pacific Rim!

[@JosephReadsBooks]

Great video! I need to go back and read some of the SF I enjoyed at that age.

[@AnonymousAnonposter]

I was born in 1990 and grew up watching so many sci-fi films besides shows like SG1, Farscape, Babylon 5, the original The Twilight Zone and the 90s The Outer Limits between anime and western cartoons with sci-fi themes. But I wasn't as lucky with books since at that time, where I live, it was rare for publishers to publish sci-fi for whatever reason. And when it comes to sci-fi books, I believe the 60s and 70s are the best in the genre.

[@vintagesf]

My TV show of shame (meaning I've never watched it) is "Farscape". Someday I will binge it.

[@mrScififan2]

You and I share similar experiences. When I was 11, 12, 13…Science Fiction opened the whole universe to me. Every SF book and show you mentioned takes me back to when the world was magical ! I remember Ark Two, that British show UFO, Frankenstein meets the Space monster, The Wizard of Mars…All those Ben BOVA novels, all those Larry Niven novels…John Varlie’s Titan…and many more

[@vintagesf]

I was about 9 years old when I caught a few of ITV's 'UFO' in first run in Canada. I was fascinated with the technology and the concept. Loved seeing SHADO's MoonBase and the Interceptors were so cool.

[@paulcooper3611]

For me, the Lucky Star juveniles by Isaac Asimov will always epitomize being 12 years old. As for TV, we didn't get a TV set until I was 16, so I didn't get to see Star Trek in the original. (It's a long story.) I didn't start going to the movies until I was 18 and decided I was old enough to defy Dad's parental edict. On movies I've seen now, though, I have to agree with you about 'Arrival'. That really did bring back the sense of wonder for me. The other one the awoke my sense of wonder was 'The Martian'. I had already read the book, and the film still awoke the 12 year old inside me. So did the book, for that matter. It made hard SF come alive again.

[@CasperHulshof]

I remember watching Ghostbusters in the cinema. It's still an excellent movie. By the way, I also read Childhood's End recently (of course that same SF Masterworks edition), and it's a weird story with a terrific ending. Mysterious and mind bending.

[@waltera13]

Liked the vid. Good idea for either a playlist, or a tag. . . Trek & TZ, (of course) with a special mention for the Twilight Zone Christmas episode "Night of the Meek." (Can still bring me to tears.) For some reason the only book that comes to mind is "In the Keep of Time" by Margaret J Anderson. And I'm not even British!

[@vintagesf]

'Night of the Meek' is one of those emotional, uplifting episodes of TZ. Miracles and redemption. Thanks for bringing it up!

[@OmnivorousReader]

When I was 12 - 13 years old my mother and I were in a city (didn't happen often) and I blundered into Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, knowing nothing but that it was sci-fi and that we both liked sci-fi. Wow! My mind was utterly blown and the magic has never faded! Look forward to your collaborations with Ira..

[@vintagesf]

"Blade Runner" certainly is a landmark in SF cinema. "2001: A Space Odyssey" was perhaps the most influential, mind blowing film I saw in my early teens. I'll be filming with Ira and Matt this weekend and then we are hoping to do a read of a Neal Stephenson book.

[@hognatius_valentine9057]

Love the video. I guess as a kid, Star Trek was a show that gave me a sense of wonder. Growing up in the UK, we caught it in a lot of repeats (reruns) on tv. But also the British children’s show Thunderbirds. That show was set in the future with a family who used their high tech vehicles to rescue people in disasters that conventional services couldn’t. Although made with marionettes, its ambition was magnificent. It felt serious with a marvellous dramatic and urgent soundtrack. It felt cinematic and appealed to kids without talking down to them. For books, I read a great series of sci-fi books called The Expendables by Edmund Cooper (aka Richard Avery), about a team of scientists with very problematic histories sent out to ‘tame’ planets for earth colonisation. Great space adventure that also felt adult. Reread the first one not so long ago and I felt it still held up. And at the age of twelve, Superman the Movie would be the film that gave me that sense of wonder too, although I felt it more with The Empire Strikes Back. I saw that film first, before Star Wars, but luckily after its release, one of the cinemas in London started to screen Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back as a double bill and I saw that multiple times.

[@vintagesf]

Loved the Supermarionation shows of the Andersons. I include both "UFO" and "Space 1999" in that category. Thunderbirds are go!

[@hognatius_valentine9057]

@ Those shows were great. I also loved another show he did with marionettes- Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons. Always with great tech, but every time I look back on that show I marvel at the fact that, although the enemy were aliens, it was a kids show about terrorism.

[@marjoriedonnett5467]

I began reading science fiction with H.G. Welles and was so fascinated! Dune is my favorite book and has been for 50 years. I'm retired now and still reading science fiction. This won't end until my last breath. I loved Star Trek and have all the episodes on Blu-ray. I also have The Wrath of Khan (my favorite Star Trek movie). Ditto with Twilight Zone - I enjoy watching this one on Blu-ray between Christmas and New Year's.

[@vintagesf]

@@marjoriedonnett5467 I sometimes think H. G. Wells must have been an oracle or time traveller to create the body of ideas that still populate SF today.

[@vilstef6988]

The phrase is also sometimes attributed to Damon Knight. The phrase is so well-known it's funny it's so hard to track the origin!

[@Tom_Ballentine]

As a 12 year old in 1968 I had already discovered R.A. Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy and Gold Key's comics Magnus:Robot Fighter, while on TV I was hooked on Lost in Space and Star Trek. As for the Planet of the Apes, I read the book after the movie. My childhood was one SciFi adventure after another, I' am still there too.

[@vintagesf]

@@Tom_Ballentine Magnus: Robot Fighter!

[@paulcooper3611]

@@vintagesf Not only Magnus: Robot Fighter, but also Dr. Solar: Man of The Atom. That was my favorite atomic energy superhero until E-Man came along. Okay, I admit that part of the attraction was his secret identity: Alek Tron.

[@vintagesf]

@ 😀

[@SciFiScavenger]

Star trek, battlestar galactica were my favourite shows at that sort of age. I really love the 2003 reboot of battlestar galactica, watched it through a bunch of times. My 12 year old read was Day of the Triffids, and that has stick as a firm favourite for me. 👍

[@vintagesf]

My family and I watched through the entire 2003 BSG reboot averaging about one episode a day (DVDs). We all have great memories of that show.

[@SciFiScavenger]

@@vintagesf so say we all!

[@unstopitable]

I remember, as a kid, watching on TV Star Trek reruns, the B&W Twilight Zone, and, my favorite, Ray Bradbury theater, b/c Ray Bradbury was and still is my idol. They're so many. As far as books go, it was A Wrinkle in Time--the first novel-length (not really) work I read, when I was, I think, in second grade. I was enthralled by the creature on the cover, and really got into the story and the series. I still really like the George Pal version of The Time Machine and the War of the Worlds. The colors in those movies still enthrall. I also really enjoyed the The First Men in the Moon--the crystals, the weird insectoids. I remember reading The Time Machine, and getting melancholic when the Traveller go so far into the future, humanity is gone. 12 is that age in which the inner and outer worlds are still so porous. Return of the Jedi, of course, had a deep impact of my generation; built right on top of the Hero's Journey, it seemed transcendental. Now, the Star Wars franchise seems not only bent on destroying that foundational myth itself, which is why Star Wars is so dreadful. It's anti-Star Wars, to its core, and yet parasitically feeds off it. I must add: Fantastic Planet/Oms en série. I enjoyed the book, but that animated film still puts me into a trance. And it's in the Public Domain!

[@vintagesf]

@@unstopitable Loved those Pal films. Regarding “Star Wars”, often more is less. A difficult lesson in our age of sequels and series.

[@picturepainter]

At the age of 12 I read my first H.G. Wells book, "The Time Machine", after watching the 1960 movie on television. That same year I got my first SF reference book "Who's Who and What's What In Science Fiction". Also at that time someone lent me their copy of John Christopher's "Tripods Trilogy". It was a one-volume edition with a photo from the TV adaptation on the cover. I didn't have time to read it all the way through, but I ended up getting my own copy the following year. It now has sticky tape holding the pages in.

[@vintagesf]

@@picturepainter Enjoyed ‘The Death of Grass’. Hope to find more of Christopher’s work. Love that your book is so well used!

[@chocolatemonk]

in 1878 for TV I watched Robotech. Man I got in to that and the RPG. The RPG modules for any IP were always a treasure trove of info for any fan. Movies, I saw Abyss and it blew my mind. I enjoyed Honey, I Shrunk the Kids for the effects. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was horrible. Ender's Game, Phantom Tollbooth and A Wrinkle in Time were the books that hooked me. . . .LotR as well but that is fantasy. I remember making Mix tapes on my stereo listening to the radio for cool songs. Def Leppard was being played as well on tape. .. . Next year I would see GNR, Metallica and Faith No More

[@vintagesf]

@@chocolatemonk I think ‘Ender’s Game’ might be a very important book for people born in the 70s and 80s. I certainly enjoyed it. Never did get into Robotech.

[@Pelayo_JMR_1980]

It's difficult.... our brains are biased by millions of things now. Adult worries, judgement, comparisson with everything we read, watched.... even the way we consume stories now changed. Keeping the child somehow alive is possible, but THAT awe, with the same amount of pure blessed ignorance... I'm afraid I will no longer experience it. But I'm glad I did 🤘🏻

[@vintagesf]

@@Pelayo_JMR_1980 Every once in a while I think I transcend the jadedness of adult worries and cares and enter into that awe and wonder. Happens more often when travelling or in nature.

[@NancyLebovitz]

I'm putting in a nice word for _The Oracle Year_ by Chareles Soule. It has remarkable sense of wonder without being much like anything I've read before. It started out like an ordinary thriller, but then it went sideways.

[@vintagesf]

Had to look this one up. Sounds interesting. I'll watch for it in my used bookstore visits. Is it one that would be in the science fiction section or general literature? Sometimes popular books aren't labelled SF.

[@NancyLebovitz]

@@vintagesf Thanks for being interested. I found my copy in a little free library. I don't know where anyone would shelve it. Maybe you should look up the cover so it will be more likely to catch your eye.

[@vintagesf]

@ Looked it up. Cheers!

[@daveac]

Twightlight Zone - the present day version would surely be Black Mirror (before that maybe Warehouse13) - For me at 12 or 13 (long time ago) it would be films like Nautilus or Journey to the Centre of the Earth or Forbidden Planet - on TV maybe Quatermass and the Pit :-)

[@vintagesf]

I thought about 'Black Mirror' but it often brings feelings of horror rather than wonder. Wasn't sure how to reconcile that so left it out of the video.

[@daveac]

@@vintagesf The Black Mirror episode that came to mind for me - especially after you mentioned Star Trek - was their 'spoof' Star Trek one :-)

[@PaulSaether]

First episode of Dr. Who aired on UK TV 16 days after my 12th birthday.

[@vintagesf]

@@PaulSaether Wow!

[@PaulSaether]

@@vintagesf I hope that that "Wow!" doesn't mean "You are ancient!"

[@vintagesf]

@@PaulSaether 🙄

[@danieldelvalle5004]

King Kong and Godzilla were two of my gateways into wonder. Now the movie that is my sweet spot is John Carpenter's The Thing.

[@vintagesf]

@@danieldelvalle5004 Great movie from one of the greatest novellas of all time, “Who Goes There” by John W. Campbell.

[@WarDog793]

Twelve. Yep that was a good age for me. _Star Trek_ premiered, and I was able to buy paperbacks--real books!--and all I cared to read was SF. But I'd already been conditioned years before by _The Lost World_ in 1960, and then there was _20,000 Leagues under the Sea._ All I wanted to read was Jules Verne and H.G. Wells after that.

[@vintagesf]

@@WarDog793 Both of those were early reads for me as well. Very thankful for the books available in my rural middle school.

[@timbuktu8069]

Now that I'm ancient I can say that my love for science fiction hasn't changed but the CREATORS of sci/fi have fallen down. Most current efforts are either reboot of earlier work or so woke as to be unidentifiable as science fiction. I actually don't mind the retreads. Star Wars was after all an homage to the 1930s Buck Rogers serials. But they have to tell a good story and that's what's lacking.

[@vintagesf]

I'm struggling to find contemporary authors to even take a chance on. Adam Roberts is my one hope right now.

[@timbuktu8069]

@@vintagesf Right now I'm going back in time and reading pulp fiction. All the Weird Tales and Amazing Stories I can get my hands on.

[@disconnected22]

All I remember is that I was *devouring* Stephen King at that age

[@vintagesf]

@@disconnected22 I was always surprised that my middle school library stocked so many King books. Pleasantly surprised.

[@deaddropholiday]

How can it hold any wonder when the majority of works now published are either movie or tv tie ins or multi-part sequels (with each book weighing in at an eye-watering 1,000+ pages .... I'm talking about you, Peter F. Hamilton!)? I don't romanticize the past because even back in the day I realised there was a lot of very dubious stuff about. But ever since the SF business model changed (not to mention the decision to run with non-genre cover art as though you are EMBARRASSED to publish SF) it's been downhill. You want to improve SF? Dump Star Wars, Dr. Who, Trek, Marvel, DC and all of the rest.

[@vintagesf]

@@deaddropholiday A lot of good points here. As I mentioned in another comment, often more is less. Sequels and series waters down the legacy of original works. I’m certainly guilty of consuming too much of a good thing until it becomes bland. Talking cover art, I think it has been going downhill since the late 1970s and today’s AI generated covers may save publishers money but once again waters down the product.

[@deaddropholiday]

@@vintagesf Lack of quality is one thing. But I'm talking about the conscious decision by publishers to strip all genre trappings from covers in a pathetic attempt to generate more sales. In many cases the cover sold the book without any need to read the back page. They lost all of that.

[@deaddropholiday]

@@vintagesf For me things went sideways when they overpaid Alastair Reynolds after ONE BOOK. I'd argue that's the only decent thing he ever wrote. And it still wouldn't make it into the waste paper basket of stuff Iain M. Banks was throwing away as not good enough.

[@User_Un_Friendly]

Richard, while we may agree to disagree on our reading preferences, I prefer Military Science Fiction, with occasional leavening of Hard Science Fiction, we are in Lockstep with our movie preferences! 😉. I would like to add a shoutout to the new US Godzilla, and Kong movies...I love them. 🦖🦧. Alas, I had discovered Ted Chiang way before the movie came out, so I didn't get that wonderful surprise at the end of Arrival. 😡. Don't forget the Original, and Best Outer Limits. That show holds up, as well as Space, Above and Beyond. Recommended. Even though it's mystery, I'm going to recommend you try out Ellery Queen, which is simply a marvelous show, that I loved growing up. Highly recommended. Oh, and if you're tempted by the tv series version of a Childhood's End, don't, it's quite horrible. You might enjoy Elementary, though really the first season was the best. You might like my Aaron Sorkin addiction, West Wing. 👍. Almost forgot UFO... love that show! 🤩

[@vintagesf]

"Space, Above and Beyond" had so much promise. Forgot about that show. Watched "Ellery Queen" with my parents. A lot of fun. "UFO" was a show which I both loved and frustrated me. Only one season. Didn't get too far in understanding the aliens. However I loved the special effects and wanted to be an Interceptor pilot. Thanks for the recommendations.