When I was in the bookstore, I was offered a “new” position in Store #1 (Southdale). My title was Associate Manager, a title that didn’t exist anywhere else in the bookstore world at that point. This fancy title meant that I had more responsibility, more work but no more power than any average employee. And certainly not a lot more money. But the one thing that I was promised was the doing this job would mean that when it came time for me to become a store manager, I would be able to skip the traditional small “starter” store, but would jump right away to a medium store.
If you live in the Twin Cities, if you ever visited the store over in Sun Ray Mall (not there any longer), you’ll know that they lied to me. There were only a few stores smaller than Sun Ray at the time. However, the Associate Manager job was such a pain in the patoot that I didn’t argue when they offered me the teeny store – off I went.
I’ve mentioned the teeniest because despite it’s small size, it had the largest Dr. Who section in the Twin Cities – seven full shelves in the corner so basically its own section. A couple of times a week, someone would come in the front door and ask “Dr. Who?”. We sold A LOT of the little mass market editions. Some of them were books based on episodes and many were other Dr. Who fiction. Written by many different authors.
That was over 30 years ago, only half way through what is now a 60-year legacy and still going strong. Even though we had cornered the Dr. Who market at the time, it didn’t interest me much. As time has passed, I’ve watched just a few episodes and a couple of years ago I did read the very first book.
A couple of weeks ago I read something on FB that commented that Dr. #5 (Peter Davison) is the father-in-law of Dr. #10 (David Tennant). Not sure why but that seems like a funny happenstance. So I decided I might learn a bit more about the whole Dr. Who universe. I’ve started with a series that was made about 10 years ago. There is one DVD per doctor with a 30-minute overview and interviews covering the doctor, the companions and what made them special and different. Then there is one episode, sometimes the first of that particular doctor, sometimes one of the most iconic.
There have been 14 different Dr. Who actors, although some folks count 15 because David Tennant came back. However clocking in with a whooping 892 episodes filmed so far, this is not a rabbit hole I’m going to jump down. I’ll watch the rest of the series. Maybe in the future I’ll watch a few more here and there – particularly David Tennant and Peter Davison, both of whom I already liked from other roles. I don’t think I’ll need a spreadsheet!
Is there any science fiction you like? A Dr. Who fan? Star Wars? Star Trek? Firefly? Avengers?
Trail Baboon 
In my wheel house!
My kids were raised with Dr. Who.
It was the Tom Baker Era, 1974 to 1981.
Daleks remain a meme in our communications.
“Obey!”
“Exterminate!”
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Pluto TV has a dedicated Dr. Who channel.
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Although I write science fiction, I have not been an enthusiastic reader since the 1980s, when I started working on my own books.
My artificial intelligence writing craft coaches have lately been referencing other authors during reviews of the work, and I might have to start reading again to discover who my people are.
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Never got into Dr. Who and don’t know anything about them. Kinda got into Star Wars as a kid, learned a little more with our son. And I’ve got a nephew who is ALL OVER the Star Wars stuff. But he’s a geek.
I read Issac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy way back when… too young to get it back then, but I remember bits of it.
Not into sci-fi much anymore.
I do enjoy the Avengers movies; their humor makes them fun. Haven’t seen all of them… it’s on my list.
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Not really. I just don’t like it. See you tomorrow.
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I watched all the original Star Trek episodes with my dad when they were first aired. (Funny aside that the two shows that my dad and I enjoyed together were Perry Mason and then Star Trek.) I also saw all the movies when they came out – really only liked two of them. But I don’t consider myself a ST geek.
When Star Wars came out, I was at Carleton so I saw it at the Grand Theatre in Northfield. I went back three more nights in a row with different folks; it was mesmerizing. Despite that I’m not a massive fan and have only seen a few of the movies after IV, V and VI.
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Not much of a sci-fi fan. I liked the first “Avengers” movie, but never got into the others. I’m probably one of the few people who has never watched a Star Wars movie. And I only watched a few episodes of Star Trek as a kid.
I have enough trouble figuring out this world. Don’t dump a fantasy world on me where I have to start from scratch to figure things out. 😉
Chris in Owatonna
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I’ve read some science fiction, but I guess I’m not a huge fan. I saw the first Star Wars, but not the ones that followed. I wasn’t a fan of Star Trek when I was young, but I did watch some of the Next Generation series. I enjoyed some of those.
I used to catch some episodes of Dr. Who late at night when I got home after work. I worked 3:30 – 12:00 AM and when I got home that late, I always needed a couple of hours to wind down. I remember enjoying the episodes I saw, but not to the extent that I wanted to watch it more. I recently saw that Dr. Who was on Pluto TV so I tried to watch an episode. I didn’t enjoy it at all, and switched back to my Passport app.
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We moved back to the US from Canada in 1986. Until 2014, we only used our TV for DVD and VCR movies. We had no cable TV until my dad moved in with us the summer before he died. I thought he would want to watch baseball games. We kept the cable service after he died. Our TV was in the basement, however, and we rarely if ever watched. I heard about Dr. Who, but I have never seen any episodes. I liked Star Trek on TV as a kid and Star Wars in the movies. Other than that, I really don’t like science fiction. I plan to get some sort of cable service in Luverne, and our house came with three large TV’s in various rooms, but I doubt we will watch much TV. Our roommate to be likes to watch TV when she quilts.
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I don’t read much sci-fi though “The Martian” and “Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir are excellent reads. The movie based on “The Martian” starring Matt Damon is very good. I am eagerly awaiting the “Project Hail Mary” movie with Ryan Gosling. Fantasy books don’t hold much appeal either. I did enjoy the Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde.
I have seen every Star Trek and Next Generation tv show and all the ST movies (the odd number ones better than the even numbers) but I don’t consider myself a Trekkie. I have also seen all the Star Wars movies – again the original three are by far the best.
I started watching Dr. Who back when Tom Baker portrayed him and continued through Peter Davison – lost interest when Colin Baker took over. Renewed my interest over the past twelve years and have now seen nearly every episode (through the Jodie Whitaker years) either via DVD or through cable/streaming (many episodes from the first two doctors are unavailable/lost). I didn’t care for all the incarnations of the doctor but most of the companions were fun.
As to the Avengers series – I liked the original Ironman and Spider-man movies but most of the rest have been kinda boring. I don’t bother with the most recent ones. The best Avengers, though, were John Steed and Mrs. Peel.
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I have the John Steed, Emma Peel episodes on DVD. This reminds me I haven’t watched him in a while.
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Those are MY Avengers!
And those of my sisters.
We watched religiously.
Always looking for the leather outfit that indicated some criminal was going to have the sheet (sic) beaten out of him.
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Oops – made a goof. The even number Star Trek movies were much better than the odd number ones. Number two – “The Wrath of Khan” – and four – “The Voyage Home” – were the best.
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I agree
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My sci-fi era was right out of college. Everything Asimov and Bradbury, but Bradbury is better classified as fantasy. A few others writing in that era. Tried the old classic writers, but did not appeal to me. Tried a few times to do Dr. Who, but it does not catch my imagination. First Star Wars trilogy with my kids and none after that. Star Trek in all its formats seemed so forced. Watching Shatner chew the scenery. No thanks.
Asimov and Bradbury short stories can be masterpieces of a challenging genre. In the end fantasy became my preferred reading, when I could find the right thing books.
One-Eyed Clyde
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I read aa lot of science fiction as a teenager, novels by Heinlein and Asimov, Bradbury and Matheson and also a lot of collections of stories compiled by various sci-fi publications. I still read the occasional science fiction novel. Dystopian science fiction doesn’t attract me. I get enough dystopia every day. Also interstellar conflict and exploration doesn’t usually catch my interest. As I have mentioned here before, I tend to be drawn to time travel stories.
Would you categorize Matthew Haig and John Scalzi and Robin Sloan as sci-fi writers or would you put them in a subcategory?
I mentioned previously The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen Flynn, which employs the usual time travel tropes but in the service of Jane Austen scholarship and Time and Again by Jack Finney, who also wrote Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Time and Again is time travel but light on science.
In the last year, I read, aside from a couple of Matthew Haig novels, a worthy debut novel by Kaliane Bradley entitled The Ministry of Time, and a quirky but very memorable one by Jedediah Berry, The Manual of Detection.
I’ve never gotten into Dr. Who. We’ve watched many of the various Star Treks at one time or another. When I was in college, we mounted a television high up on the wall in our apartment and we and our friends would gather to watch episodes of Star Trek— the original series and each episode being shown for the first time —with the sound turned off. My friends and roommates, who were quicker and wittier than I, would supply the dialog.
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Interesting question about categorizing Haig, Scalzi and Sloan. Most of the genres that I’m thinking about seem too limiting for all three of these authors. Maybe we should defer to “speculative fiction” after all. If the moon turning to cheese isn’t speculative, what is?
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I wasn’t crazy about Ministry of Time or Time & Again and for the same reason. Fabulous ideas but didn’t care for the main characters – they kind of both went off the rails in my opinion.
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Of course the best science fiction television of all, in my opinion, was the one that introduced me to the subject: Science Fiction Theater, hosted by Truman Bradley.
He would start each episode by demonstrating some scientific principle that echoed the story. Here’s the intro:
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Who needs science fiction when one has MN weather. We are suddenly in a blizzard warning. BF was going to drive down to us today from Howard Lake. I caught her with a message just as she was putting her suitcase in her car to tell her of the weather. We currently have whiteout conditions in town.
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That header photo looks like a moomintroll.
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Finish reading later… Star Trek The Next Generation is as close as I’ve gotten to Sci-Fi – I loved that show, always had a lesson.
Husband got Asimov monthly magazine for a while…
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My dad loved Edgar Rice Burroughs. And he particularly loved the John Carter Mars series. I kind of discounted it for a lot of years and did eventually read one and liked it quite a bit. I haven’t read any of the other others, but I did give a silent nod to my dad when I realized it wasn’t as junkie as I had been expecting it to be.
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