The planets have aligned and science fiction is making a comeback in my little reading world.

For years, I’ve harbored some ambivalence towards science fiction as a genre: I love movies like Alien and The Matrix, but I’ve mostly shied away from it in literature. I suppose the cheesy covers of a lot of science fiction books has something to do with this, but I also think it’s because I hold science fiction to a higher standard than I would most other genres. I used to read science fiction as a kid—H. G. Wells was one of my favorite authors—and when I look back, I remember how Wells’s The Invisible Man, as well as other science fiction books, induced a sense of wonder in me. What would it be like to be invisible? To travel at the speed of light? To meet aliens and visit other planets? The possibilities in science fiction are endless, and that’s probably why it’s endured for so long.

As I got older, though, my reading tastes shifted towards more realistic stories. Robots weren’t as interesting as serial killers. Books set in modern times seemed to have more immediacy than books set hundreds of years in the future. I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief and accept ray guns, anti-gravity devices, and drooling aliens. It became tedious, with the technical explanations and the sleek toys that solved every problem while always breaking down at that crucial moment.

In short, I found it difficult to take science fiction seriously.

I also think there’s a fine line between imagination and caricature. Yes, science fiction should be imaginative, but it should also provoke some thought about our future, rather than simply giving us faster spaceships, weirder aliens, and fancier gadgets. I’m one of those readers who appreciates books that make me think and, more than any other genre, I think science fiction is in a prime position to tell us something about human nature. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World asks us if we’d really be happy living in a utopia, where everything is provided and all unpleasantness has been eradicated. But without unpleasantness, how would we measure happiness?

A lot of my prejudice about science fiction stems from the campiness of television shows like Star Trek and irritating characters like Jar Jar Binks. (I understand that science fiction literature is a far cry from Star Wars, but, as I’m sure you’re already aware, my experience with it largely comes from popular culture.) When I think of science fiction, I imagine fanboys dressed up as their favorite alien, weilding toy phasers and light sabers at conventions. I’m not much interested in the science aspect of the genre; sure, explaining how a warp drive works may lend the U.S.S. Enterprise a bit of credibility, but at the end of the day, I just want to travel at warp speed. I don’t want to speak the jargon that goes along with it.

So, thanks to Adam’s encouragement (click on over to Literary Gas if you haven’t already), I’m pretty excited about getting back into science fiction, after ten-plus years of snobbishly ignoring it. I still have about a week before I head back to the library, but I’ll have plenty of time to poke around and see what’s out there.