Introduction and all of that

I have been mulling over starting a new blog for some time, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to write about. Finally, it hit me--I could write about one of my passions, the world of science fiction. In particular, I really enjoy Golden Age sci-fi novels.

My love affair with sci-fi (and related genres) started when I first learned to read. Most books for small children are fantasy, of course, but I wasn't one of those kids who simply grew out of the escapism and the richly plotted other worlds. As I grew, I started reading all of the teeny-bopper horror stuff that was all the rage (like good old R.L. Stine.)

By the time I was in high school, I began to eschew the science fiction and fantasy that I had loved so much because it frankly was not "cool" for a teenage girl to like books and movies about space and dragons and things like that. In the late '90s and early '00s teenage girls were expected to go to the mall every day and giggle about boys, not watch Star Wars or play XBOX.

During my senior year of high school, my English teacher selected Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury as one of the novels we would read and discuss in class. I was completely shocked by how much I loved this brief, amazing novel that is loathed by high school students everywhere. In the same class, we also read Bradbury's short story "There Will Come Soft Rains," which moved me to tears and remains one of my favorite short stories of all time.

From that point on, I was a die-hard sci-fi addict, critics be damned. I don't consider myself an expert by any means, but I do love the genre. I will say, there is a veritable ton of shitty sci-fi out there (hello, Transformers movie franchise), but if you know where to look, you can also find a lot of really amazing, high-quality science fiction that will test the limits of your imagination and show you something about yourself at the same time.

I will leave you, kind reader, with a list of some of my favorite sci-fi-related things. These aren't ranked in any kind of order, they're just so that you can get a feel of what type of sci-fi I am a fan of.

• Most things by Ray Bradbury
• The Twilight Zone
• Star Wars (films, video games, CCG, etc.)
• Dystopian and post-apocalyptic novels
• female sci-fi writers (ie Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia E. Butler) and feminist sci-fi