My SF Story (Part 1)

Getting Started

If you don't know yet, I have a very special love of Science Fiction (SF). My first exposure came as a babe in arms, when in 1977 my parents took me to see Star Wars. My dad always had a copy of Edgar Rice Burrows' Princess of Mars with the classic Michael Whelan's classic 1979 cover with John Carter carrying Dejah Thoris draped across his arms and green, four-armed aliens claw at his heels as they lie there dying (of course it sat on the back of the toilet for years). Then, of course my parents showed wisdom taking me and my little four-year-old sister (whom I remember having R2-D2 underoos around this time) to The Empire Strikes Back in 1981.

But it was either late 1982 or early 1983 that my second grade class (under Sra. Garcia) went to the library to listen to Mrs. Cassidy read a story to us. I sat with my Spanish Immersion class in the library somewhere near Mrs. Cassidy's youngest son, Eddy who was in my class as we listened to her read us a story in English. The story she chose was Ray Bradburry's "Sound of Thunder." Over two or three weeks she read the story of time travel to hunt a Tyrannosaurus Rex. I remember seeing with my second-grade mind the impact that one foolish decision could have moving forward. My world changed, it opened up and literature became real.

Many years later, in 2000, I saw Mrs. Cassidy again, while I was in college. I described to her how much the story changed my life and set me forward on the path of literature and storytelling. I told her how much I blamed her for my love of the words. She told me that she remembered reading that story to my class. She said, "...When I finished reading the story, I remember looking over your class and most of them had the glassy-eyed stare that most kids get at the end of storytime. But, you were on fire. I could see it in your eyes."

She really lit that fire, and my uncle, David Farland fanned that flame into a roaring inferno. More on him, next post.

*Names are changed, of course.