This was written in 2025 for a non-genre Book Group, who asked me why I read Science Fiction and Fantasy. This was my response, slightly edited. I thought others might be interested; it is a sort of call-to-arms, if you like.
Mark
It was once said that “the golden age of science-fiction (for a SF reader) is 12”, although I have heard of the age being anything between twelve and fourteen.
If that is the case, then I guess I don’t fit into that cliché, as I understand I was reading the science fiction comic TV21 at the age of five, I understand – after all, it had Thunderbirds, Stingray and Captain Scarlet in it!
By the age of twelve, I was reading H G Wells (War of the Worlds, The Time Machine), Isaac Asimov (I Robot, Foundation), Ben Bova, Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey), Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers) and Ray Bradbury (Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451) – really, anything science-fictional I could get my hands on. Many others will recognise this situation, I suspect.
And now, over 50 years on, I find I’m still reading it – other genres too, but SF and then horror and fantasy are my true loves. How can a genre keep me reading it after so long? I’ll try and explain that here, in a minute.
Let’s first look at why I liked it. When I think back to my original interest, I think it was the same thing that made me interested in the Gerry Anderson television series – it was the future! Based on what I read, the future was fascinating – and unknown. Who knew what the future would be like?
Science fiction was a genre that looked at infinite possibilities, a chance to explore the “what-if”. What would it be like to travel to other planets, other places, places never seen or experienced before? What would happen if we extrapolate from now to a hundred, thousand, million years from now? What would cities be like? How would societies work? How would they cope with change? It was all very exciting.
The other thing was that the majority of this reading material was positive – people survived and even thrived when faced challenges – whether those challenges were social, economic, physical or environmental – or human and alien! The dystopian came later.
Whether utopian or dystopian, generally they were imaginative, exciting and unusual. This was not the sort of story you usually experienced when reading. They involved using your imagination and suspending that sense of disbelief, for a little while at least. Although I was limited to the choices in my local library in a small Northern town – even my school library was limited in scope and range – my imagination was sparked, the possibilities were endless.
“Great science fiction often deals with geopolitical issues, broad social pendulum shifts, and large-scale systems failure (think Dune, or Isaac Asimov’s The Foundation trilogy, which I inhaled when I was about 12 and re-read for fun every decade or so). All these are in play today, particularly in the US, where politics is totally in flux.’ (Rana Foroohar, Financial Times ‘Swamp Notes’, 10 February 2025
It may be at least partly due to me being interested in the unknown, because at the same time I found I liked exploring the unknown in another way – I liked reading gothic horror stories, stories about the supernatural, ghosts and the intangible. Looking back, I now realise that this may have been just another attempt to make sense of things in the world, but at the time the thought of unknown things happening in creepy places was attractive, never mind the chance of explaining the unexplainable. This led to my reading of Dracula, the Pan Horror books and others of that nature –Aidan Chambers, Mary Danby, Alfred Hitchcock, followed by James Herbert, Stephen King, M. R. James and the like.
That’s not to say that everything I read was imagined. Whilst being also interested in the future, I also had a love of history. I read historical novels and lots of non-fiction (and still do!)
This interest in ‘ancient times’ unsurprisingly led to a connection between those and ancient storytelling, an interest in folklore and ancient myth. Having being bought a copy by a generous uncle at the age of 8 or 9, I found Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings very interesting, managing to combine both ancient history (of a sorts) with folklore, tales told from an imaginary long ago.
Having said that, I can’t deny that the prosaic prose of Tolkien was hard-going at times – even now the poetry still leaves me a little cold, although I do appreciate it much more these days as an older adult.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I suddenly realised that there were alternatives – you could enjoy such stories without the poetry. They were lighter, faster-paced books, with exciting things going on and characters that were easily identifiable, books such as Terry Brooks’s Sword of Shannara trilogy and Raymond Feist’s Magician, and David Eddings’ Belgariad and Malloreon series. Whilst there were some determinably obtuse books (Stephen Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant series delighted in deliberately using obscure language, for example) these by comparison were a breath of fresh air and I grabbed whatever I could to read.
Their attraction was oddly the opposite of the SF novels. Whilst many of the science fiction books looked at a future, these were often gazing towards the past. Often medieval-esque in tone, these books often used elements of history, but with one important difference – they also involved the imagination, by introducing imaginary creatures such as dragons, elves and goblins to the plot.
In other words they had the things I like about a history novel but with something extra – new, exciting, unusual.
And I guess that having explained ‘how I got here’, I had better now explain why I’ve kept reading them. I’m often asked “Why are you still reading about spaceships/dragons/vampires/*that* stuff (insert your own cliché here)?” “Surely you can’t want to read another story about spaceships/dragons/vampires/*that* stuff (insert your own cliché here)!”
Well… yes. I’ve partly mentioned that already (new, exciting, unusual.)
I often imagine it rather akin to saying to a crime reader – “Haven’t you read enough detective novels?” Like crime novels, the opportunities for something new in science fiction, fantasy and horror are immeasurable – perhaps more so, where your only limit is your imagination. For example, you could have a crime novel with other elements from science fiction, horror and fantasy added to it, and providing that the sense of disbelief is maintained, they can be an enjoyable experience.
What keeps me reading is that whilst the archetypes are the same, the details are different. Over time there have been changes in style and form, differences in tone, mood and texture. We’ve come a long way from the simplistic characterisation of the 1930’s pulps – although they are still a good read from time to time.
These days the range is broad, from straight-forward to mind-bogglingly complex, the characters can vary, even when they are at the point of cliché, the tones of a plot can range from light to dark, the mood from cheery to bleak. And everything in-between. This means that there’s usually something I can find to read, whatever I’m in the mood for!
Naturally, I like my comfort reads – those books I reread, or those authors I will always read books from – but I also still get a thrill from finding a book I like, from someone I’ve never heard of before but would be happy to read again. In my opinion, there’s nothing like seeing an author take an idea – or ideas – and run with it. And what I get from science fiction, fantasy and horror – still – is that opportunity to experience things beyond the normal, to explore ideas and concepts that are not usual, that are that bit different. And often how writers take similar ideas and go to different places with them. I still find enough to entertain me.
And of course, being able to talk and type about such things led to me reviewing them, as well as reading them! (I still find it odd to have written well over 500 reviews to date, and am still going!) I am pleased that sharing likes and dislikes with others has become an important part of the process for me. I love finding out that others have liked books that I’ve recommended – or can politely disagree about others where I have not. And where better to do this face-to-face but at the Book Club!
“I have lived a thousand lives and I’ve loved a thousand loves. I’ve walked on distant worlds and seen the end of time. Because I read.” (George R. R. Martin)
In summary then, I read science fiction, fantasy and horror – still – because there is enough variety and imagination within them to keep my interest. Whether it be a grim dystopian story reflecting current events or an uplifting magical tale that shows me an alternative to reality, a story of near-future catastrophe or long-distant events in the future or the past, there’s enough out there to entertain me for the foreseeable future. I think!
© 2025 Mark Yon
Mark Yon is a reviewer and administrator at SFFWorld.com, one of the oldest SF/Fantasy & Horror genre websites, that has been running since 1997. He is also a member of the SF² Concatenation book review panel, and is a lifetime member of the British Science Fiction Association ( BSFA.) He has written about the British SF magazines of the 1960s from 1962 – 1969 over at the Hugo-short-listed Galactic Journey, and was nominated as part of that team for a Hugo Award in 2023. He was also involved with the David Gemmell Awards back in 2009 – 10. And, of course, is a regular at the Book Club!
