One’s progress through life is generally fairly routine, the day-by-day events following a sinusoidal pattern of regular ups and downs. But occasionally there is an outlying event which is either a striking low point (death of loved ones, diseases, dire accidents, job loss, divorce) or a major high point. I can recall a half-dozen events in my life which were major high points that helped shape much of my life and happiness.

The first such event I recall took place on Christmas morning, 1962. My parents had a custom of sticking a comic book in our stockings each Christmas because my two brothers Stephen (4 years younger) and David (6 years younger) and I were big fans of comic books. I enjoyed “fantastic” comics such as Tales of the Unexpected, and David and I both enjoyed DC superheroes (Superman, Batman, my personal favorite Green Lantern, and Justice League of America), while Stephen preferred Archie Comics.

That Christmas though, one of my parents–and I never learned which one–saw a copy of a science fiction magazine at the comic book store, and decided I might like it. After all, they knew how much time I spent walking to the public library borrowing books with little spaceships on their spine, and I also read all of the Tom Swift Jr. books, so a science fiction magazine was not a big stretch. It was the January, 1963, issue of Worlds of IF, and when I saw it I was absolutely delighted. It was immediately the best present I got that Christmas, and I spent most of the day reading the short stories in it. My favorite was entitled “The Shipshape Miracle,” by somebody named Clifford D. Simak.

The day after Christmas I returned to the comic book store where I found another science fiction magazine, the February issue of Galaxy. It had another story by Simak, a novelette entitled “Day of Truce,” as well as four novellas, my favorite of which was “Home From the Shore,” by Gordon R. Dickson.

From that moment it is safe to say that much of my life has revolved around science fiction. I have written a lot about it, including publishing a fanzine for thirty years and one book Who Shaped Science Fiction? I spent one summer attending a science fiction writing workshop (Clarion West) and have written hundreds of thousands of words of science fiction, including 6 unpublished novels and an ongoing “future history” which already has already surpassed 100,000 words. My collection of books and magazines includes 1,200 sf and fantasy books and another 1,200 sf magazines, and the bulk of my reading is still in that genre.

Perhaps sometime I'll discuss why science fiction was the right escape for me at that point in my life.