I guess that’s a phrase that applies to a lot of us here. Richard Hawkins proudly admits to it; in fact he has gone as far as creating a new SF website, SciFi UK.com especially for the SF junkies among us (we’re not junkies, we could give it up any time we wanted, honest… It’s just that we don’t want to… Oh, OK, we admit it too, we’re addicted and we don’t want to be cured). It is a new site but already starting to look quite interesting so we asked Richard if he would share his thoughts behind the new site – why he has started it and what he wants to do with it.
Why I set it up
I first got into SF when I read The Electric Ant by Philip K Dick in the late 80s. Since then I’ve been enthralled by most aspects of it. I decided (only about three months ago from time of writing) to try and catalogue as much of the SF I’ve read, seen or heard, and write my own reviews and analysis of them.
The site isn’t meant to cover the whole genre (plenty of sites do that already), but areas which interest me personally. My favourite authors are Philip K Dick and Christopher Priest. I like the ‘what the..?’ when a story/movie comes to an end, forcing you to reassess what you have seen, maybe even re-watch/read it again.
What I hope to do with the site
The content is written from a SF junkie’s point of view, not just someone who has a passing interest, or pretends to know what SF is all about. As the site progresses, and the catalogue gets larger (and once I’ve caught up with 20 years of backlog!), I can start writing other things which pertain to SF, but which aren’t necessarily reviews. I’d like to write from an oblique angle on subjects related to SF.
At the moment, all the write-ups I do will be positive ones; I am not going to bother writing about SF which I haven’t liked, it is a way to build a database of SF which relates to me, which I hope, visitors will find useful and interesting and even fun.
I hope that other people with like minds will contribute any thoughts they have on anything at all, there by expanding and building on views already present. That said, above all, it is an easy way to share my insight and thoughts on a subject which has fascinated me for over half of my life.
Richard Hawkins resides close to where H.G. Wells’ Martians in War Of The Worlds landed (the real WoW and not Mr Spielberg’s, ahem, ‘re-imagining’ version. Rumours that he uses a Martian heat ray for cooking instead of a microwave are unsubstantiated at this time). SF Junkies can find SciFi UK here.
Wed, Sep 14, 2005
General