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 "Johnson, McCoy--I think we've just crossed the dreaded puddle barrier!" (see below) |
(Blast off!) McFadden Portrait of the Artist As A Teenage Sci-Fi Geek |
Legacy of My Tawdry Sci-Fi Years:
One story really stuck to my ribs!
By
CHUCK McFADDEN
of TheColumnists.com
WHEN I WAS a kid, maybe between 11 and 16, I used to read a lot of science fiction; Robert A. Heinlein was my favorite author. But oddly enough, I never read any of his best stuff. "Stranger in a Strange Land" was, well, a stranger to me. I specialized in pulp potboilers, and lower Heinlein, never mind the elegant philosophical questions posed in the best science fiction. I was looking for simple-minded adventure, not intellectual challenge. Hey, I was 15 years old, for Pete's sake.
Abruptly, I quit when I was 16 or so, and you couldn't get me to read a science fiction story or novel to save my life. It was detective stories, adventure novels, espionage, and even, for a brief time, westerns.
Despite my devotion to the tawdry in science fiction, one of the best short stories I ever read in my life was in the genre. It has stuck with me for more than 40 years. I don't remember its title, I don't remember the author and I don't even remember the pulp magazine where I read it.
The story tells of the adventures and striving of inhabitants of an unidentified planet somewhere. They look up at the vast, shimmying, bluish light covering their world like a lid, and wonder what it is and whether they could ever, somehow, reach it.
The story's protagonist wonders harder than others. He's tough and smart. He consults the wisest elders, thinks hard, and learns engineering skills. He and his adventurous colleagues painstakingly design and finally assemble a kind of vehicle. Will it be big enough, and strong enough, for whatever kind of journey lies ahead? And how about power? Our hero and his colleagues finally decide that a kind of strong, docile creature that has been domesticated can be harnessed to a sort of internal treadmill that turns the wheels. (Their technology was not whiz-bang.)
Our hero of course receives encouragement from a spirited and attractive member of the opposite sex.
Once the vehicle has been made ready, and the domesticated creatures harnessed, they begin to crawl forward, slowly, slowly, ever so slowly up a gentle slope they feel sure will lead them up to the bluish lid.
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Up they go. On the way, their vehicle threatens to come apart, and the treadmill creatures become exhausted. But our quick-thinking hero, his trusty second-in-command, his chief engineer, the chief scientist and the crew manage to keep things together through a series of adventures, including some near-disasters. It is truly a saga. You wonder why they persist, but persist they do.
It's a story of immense courage, perseverance and high adventure.
Finally, they reach their goal. They are triumphant. They explore what had never been explored before and they make a triumphant return to tell about what they have found.
Who are our bold, courageous heroes? You find out at the end. They are a group of tiny, buglike creatures that manage to crawl up out of a rain puddle.
Isn't that wonderful? It all takes place in a puddle. The mysterious shimmering blue lid is simply the surface, viewed from below. But you get so involved with the characters, you root for them to be successful, you live with their struggles--and you learn the lesson that heroism, striving, courage and persistence are not confined to any particular place, size, or sphere of activity.
Science fiction isn't always wonderful. But sometimes it is.
© 2001 by Charles M. McFadden. The illustrations are from the IMSI Master/Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA 94901-5506, USA.
McFadden
is a former wire service reporter. He would love it if some reader
would identify the story he just described. Then he can advise
readers of this column to avoid that story because he just ruined
the ending for them.
You can contact Chuck McFadden with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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