SamBach's Science Fiction & Fantasy Page

In my copious (yeah, right!) amounts of free time, I like to do a bit of reading. For preference, I tend to read primarily what could be clasified as Fantasy literature, with a bit of Science Fiction and more legend and folklore (mostly Welsh, but with a bit of other Northern European and Middle Eastern thrown in).

Storywise, I find I most enjoy stories with complex characters and involved plots. Favorites seem to involve primary characters with some physical or character flaw that can get in the way, but also provide a fresh perspective. Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever was probably the first story I read that fits this description, in which Thomas Covenant suffers from Leprosy and is isolated from his real-world environs before finding himself in an alternate world, mistaken as the savior of that land.

My mother had suggested the first book shortly after I had first read Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy and I was blown away by the difference in stories (though Middle Earth and The Land bear some similarities). Much of this was most likely because, as a relatively recently diagnosed diabetic, feeling a bit ostracized myself, I rather identified with Thomas' situation, but also because he read like a real person in a way that the likes of Frodo, Gandalf, and Arathorn didn't.

Other favorite stories include:

• Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and subsequent novels-

• Julie E. Czerneda's novels (particularly the standalone novel, In The Company of Others)

• Stephen R. Donaldson's The Gap series (his first Science Fiction series, and even better than the first Thomas Convenant trilogy).

• Loads of things by Neil Gaiman, particularly Neverwhere and American Gods

• Selected works by Alasdair Gray, particularly Lanark and the short story collection, Unlikely Stories, Mostly

• Katherine Kurtz' collection of Deryni novels

• Susan R. Matthews' Jurisdiction novels.

• Many of prolific Terry Pratchett's Discwold novels (definitely an uneven collection, but always an amusing read).

• Evangeline Walton's tetrology based on The Mabinogion, the primary collection of Welsh mythology

To a certain extent, though understandably needing to be a bit more forgiving, the same criteria apply to television and film. Unfortunately, American media hasn't been very good at producing much good character-based Science Fiction (and virtually no fantasy at all), with the brilliant exception of J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5 television series and the short-lived (an inappropriately marketed) Space: Above & Beyond, From north of the border (and beyond, in one case), I also found Highlander: The Series and Forever Knight satisfyingly entertaining.

Fortunately, in the English-speaking world, there is also British television to draw from. Favorites there include Blake's 7 (created by Terry Nation, "inventor" of the Daleks in the better-known Doctor Who series), Chris Boucher's lamentably short-run Star Cops, and, for completely different reasons, Rob Grant and Doug Naylor's often brilliant comedy series, Red Dwarf, particularly the earlier seasons, where there is some interesting science fiction to go with the comedy. The serialized version of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (also mentioned above) also fits on this list.

Film-wise, a few that have withstood the test of time include Ralph Bakshi's Wizards, Ridley Scott's Bladerunner, Jean Cocteau's La Belle et Le Bêt (Beauty and the Beast), Werner Herzog's Nosferatu, the wonderful original version of Bedazzled (with Dudley Moore and Peter Cook) and John Carpenter's Dark Star.