Kirstin Johnson: "I Just Keep Falling in Love Over and Over Again"

I Just Keep Falling in Love Over and Over Again

By

Kirstin Johnson

From a young age, kids are taught to read and adore fantasy. From TV shows about talking dragons in a faraway land, to bedtime stories filled with heroes and mayhem, we are conditioned to love fantasy early on in our lives. There are a lot of appealing aspects to fantasy that draw children in. Every story paints a new picture of a unique world in which things we would never have thought possible, simply are. In the short story "Brimstone and Marmalade" the author Aaron Corwin sets up a world different from our own, where demons not only exist, but are culturally accepted as pets for families. In fact, the story starts out with a young girl eagerly awaiting her birthday gifts. Mathilde’s mother told her that “Ponies are expensive…How about a nice little demon instead?” Even her grandmother was well accustomed to the existence of demons, and told Mathilde ““Demons make wonderful pets, you know.” I loved the fact that even though this world wasn’t drastically different from our own, I was still able to get a hint of the magic and mayhem I adored so much as a child.

 A story with a world completely different than our own was A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula L. Le Guinn. Similar to one of my favorite stories as a child, Harry Potter, this story told the tale of a boy with exceptional wizardry attending a wizarding school. Each chapter brought me to a new location in the world of Earthsea, with new characters and harrowing struggles. I enjoyed the more stereotypical aspects of this book, particular with the main character Ged. He was a young hero that was faced with a challenge, and with power and companionship, he was able to overcome his foes and live happily ever after. It made for an easy read; however, discussions for this book always seemed to fall flat because the plotline was rather predictable. When I read a fantasy book, I want to be swept off my feet into a world I’ve never been to before, which I can’t do when I can easily predict the main characters next course of action. Overall, to catch my interest a fantasy story must have a lot of imagery and descriptions of the unique world the characters are living in, so that I can step away from this world and into theirs. To maintain my interest, a fantasy story can have some stereotypical elements, but I shouldn’t be able to predict the entire plot.

However, as adults we tend to drift away from fantastical elements, and cling to a world that seems more probable and explainable. I have found a good middle ground in science fiction, because although it is not entirely probable or realistic, I can still see some roots of logic and scientific reasoning embedded into the plotlines. For example, in “Reason,” the author Isaac Asimov presents a small amount of background information that tells the reader where the characters are (in a space station) and what they’re primary goal is (to construct a robot to control the station’s energy beams). As a reader, this little bit of explanation is all I needed to understand the conflict in the story, and become engaged in the plot. After this initial explanation, I was able to focus on other aspects, such as the characters Cutie, Donovan, and Powell, as well as the miscommunication between them. Another story that gave little explanation scientifically was “The Cold Equation” by Tom Godwin. The author provides enough information for the reader to understand why the captain has to make a hard decision to kill the stowaway on his ship, without providing an extensive scientific explanation of how the ship was made or how technology advanced to this point. Although science is consistently one of my favorite subjects in school, I prefer a lighter load of scientific information when I am reading fiction. I want to step easily into the shoes of the character and see the world through their eyes, without getting lost in new scientific terms or knowledge.

Overall, science fiction and fantasy have always been my go-to genres because the stories take me away to a land different from our own. From the magical world of fantasy to the logical land of science fiction, I am swept off my feet and can’t stop flipping the pages until I finish the story.