On Science Fiction

It's a curious thing, our preferences. We tend to like somethings and tend to dislike others. And sometimes we don't know why that exactly is. For me, Science Fiction is one of those things. I love it terribly, but I'm still not sure why. At first, I thought it was a form of escapism. But then I'm not a huge fan of Fantasy. If I wanted to escape Fantasy should be as much as appealing as sci-fi. But that's not the case. The only fantasy character that I ever felt kinship to is Tom Bombadil from the Lord of the Rings- and that was due to purely Existential reasons. I think my fascination for science fiction comes from the fact that good science fiction actually transcends human drama, and in a way releases us from our age dependent, culture dependent moralities. And I'm not talking about books like Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica. They're more meant for mass-appeal. Rather, books like Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End and Olaf Stapledon's Starmaker or even the most recent Doctor Who season seem to have somewhat of a transcendence of the human condition about them. Hmmm.. have to ponder on this further.