Volume I Issue II

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HorsePower is a non-profit agency focusing on preservation of Wild Mustangs and Burros. “Wild and Free” license plates help fund education and raise awareness. www.nvhorsepower.org
Text Box: In the first part of the series, I mentioned that I’d been given an assignment to select approximately one hundred science fiction short stories for inclusion in an anthology that was being considered by a literary foundation. Originally, I’d intended to find the “essence” of science fiction, and then select stories that reflected this essence. Unfortunately, this turned out to be nearly impossible, since different authors had different ideas about what constituted science fiction. So, I took the easy way out, I selected four authors whose works appealed to me, and hoped that I could make selection based upon my familiarity with their works. My selection process resulted in four authors who have been writing science fiction for thirty years or more: Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Orson Scott Card, and Arthur C Clarke. As it turned out, two authors were considered “hard” science fiction writers, and two were considered “soft” science fiction writers. Well, I finally had a plan. And then the wheels fell off. I still needed some sort of selection criteria, or I’d have to develop one as I read. So, I did what anyone in my place would have done. I started reading. I read, and read some more, and then . . . I read some more. Over three thousand pages and three hundred short stories, in fact. I was almost ready to make a stab at a selection process; almost, but not quite. What, three thousand Text Box: pages, and still can’t figure out how to start? How could this be? Okay, so I’m exaggerating a little bit. I started to break the stories up into groupings around general themes—it helps when I organize things into groups, so I can apply some sort of selection criteria for seemingly unrelated data points (who says that thirty years in business doesn’t have its rewards)? Gradually, I began grouping the stories into several broad headings: scientific discoveries; life-forms (which included aliens, man-made life and artificial life); the search for meaning (which includes the search for God or the gods); the death of a group of men, a nation, race, or system; the meaning of morality. Now I admit, these groupings may be arbitrary, and may in fact reflect my perspective on things, but I had to start somewhere. The strange thing was that these grouping tended to repeat, no matter who the author was. When I thought about it, these same types of concerns are mirrored in the more “canonical” texts that are Text Box: taught in school. So, what makes science fiction different from the mainstream texts taught in colleges and universities across the country? Once again, I’m glad you asked that, because it is a perfect lead-in to the next part of the series. Peter Ponzio, the author of Children of the Night, is a CPA with over 30 years experience in Corporate Finance, holding positions as divergent as Treasurer, VP of Sales Administration, Vice President of IT, and General Manager of an internet start-up company in the late 1990s, and CFO at a subsidiary of a Fortune 100 company. Mr. Ponzio graduated with a degree in English literature from Loyola University of Chicago, and an MA in Literature from Northwestern University. In addition to his novel, Mr. Ponzio has also been in many water gardening and fish-keeping magazines. A number of these articles can be found at www.americangoldfish.org. Peter’s website can be found at www.peterjponzio.com Text Box: “All These Worlds Are Yours:” The Appeal of Science Fiction, Part II by Peter Ponzio Text Box: Page 12

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Volume Ii Issue I

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