申申然

Just as Obi-Wan Kenobi1） presented a lightsaber2） to Luke Skywalker with the words， "Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough，" my father gave me two books when I turned 11： Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov3） and The Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein4）. I don&apos；t remember which book I read first， only that I finished both in one day. I never stopped.

Kevin J. Maroney， managing editor of the New York Review of Science Fiction， says， "I started reading Science Fiction （SF） because of peer pressure： My older brother was a heavy SF reader， so the stuff was all around the house when I was growing up. The earliest books I can remember reading were fantasies （Oz， Narnia， Lewis Carroll5）， The Phantom Tollbooth） and SF （The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree， the Tom Swift Jr.6） novels， The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet）."

Diana Tixier Herald， author of Fluent in Fantasy： The Next Generation， says she has always been a SF reader. "I changed schools 13 times before I graduated high school， and every time I moved I would go into the library and all of my friends were there. I established relationships with the characters in these books." Herald&apos；s literary companions？ Besides Nancy Drew， she read， A Wrinkle in Time， The Once and Future King， and The Mushroom Planet books by Eleanor Cameron7）.

The science fiction and fantasy genre is an oeuvre8） of weird and wondrous. People come to science fiction and fantasy for the familiarity—most children&apos；s fairy tales are deeply fantastical—but they stay for reasons as varied as why people read at all.

Tor9） editor Teresa Nielsen-Hayden wisely says， "If you ask 20 different readers why they read， they will all be right." People read non-genre fiction10） to enjoy a world that is not their own， to live someone&apos；s life tangentially11） and vicariously12）. People read fiction to be informed， to be entertained， to escape， etc.

Reading is an escapist13） hobby， but science fiction and fantasy reading even more so—people can escape out of their own worlds into places and times that do not exist nor ever will.

就像歐比旺·肯諾比將一把光劍交給天行者盧克并對(duì)他說(shuō)“你父親希望你年齡夠大后可以擁有它”一樣，在我滿(mǎn)11歲的時(shí)候，父親送給我兩本書(shū)：艾薩克·阿西莫夫的《蒼穹微石》和羅伯特·海因萊因的《傀儡主人》。我不記得我先讀的是哪一本，只記得我在一天里就看完了這兩本書(shū)。我是一口氣讀完的。

《紐約科幻小說(shuō)評(píng)論》雜志的總編輯凱文·馬羅尼說(shuō)：“我開(kāi)始讀科幻小說(shuō)是礙于同齡人的壓力：我哥哥是個(gè)科幻小說(shuō)迷，所以從小到大家里滿(mǎn)屋子都是科幻小說(shuō)。我能記得我最早讀的書(shū)是奇幻小說(shuō)（《綠野仙蹤》《納尼亞傳奇》、劉易斯·卡羅爾的小說(shuō)、《神奇的收費(fèi)亭》）和科幻小說(shuō)（《蘋(píng)果樹(shù)下的太空船》、小湯姆·斯威夫特系列小說(shuō)、《飛往蘑菇星球的奇幻之旅》）?！?/p>

《暢讀奇幻：新生代作品指南》一書(shū)的作者戴安娜·蒂克西爾·赫勒爾德則表示，她一直是科幻小說(shuō)的忠實(shí)讀者。“到中學(xué)畢業(yè)為止，我總共換過(guò)13次學(xué)校，每次轉(zhuǎn)到新學(xué)校，我就會(huì)去學(xué)校的圖書(shū)館——我所有的朋友都在那兒呢。我跟那些科幻小說(shuō)中的人物都建立了感情。”赫勒爾德都有哪些文學(xué)伴侶呢？除了《少女妙探》之外，她還讀過(guò)《時(shí)間的皺紋》《永恒之王》以及埃莉諾·卡梅倫的《蘑菇星球》系列。

科幻與奇幻類(lèi)小說(shuō)是關(guān)于怪異與奇妙的文學(xué)。人們讀科幻與奇幻類(lèi)小說(shuō)是想找到一種熟悉感——兒時(shí)讀的童話(huà)故事大多都帶著濃厚的奇幻色彩，不過(guò)讓他們一直讀下去的原因卻一如人們?yōu)楹巫x書(shū)一樣多種多樣。

托爾出版社的編輯特雷莎·尼爾森-海登說(shuō)過(guò)一句妙語(yǔ)：“如果你問(wèn)20個(gè)不同的讀者他們?yōu)楹巫x書(shū)，他們給的理由全都是對(duì)的?！比藗冮喿x非通俗小說(shuō)是想體驗(yàn)別樣的世界，是想既置身事外又能間接體驗(yàn)別人的生活。人們讀小說(shuō)則是為了長(zhǎng)見(jiàn)識(shí)，為了休閑消遣，為了逃避等等。

閱讀是一種可以逃避現(xiàn)實(shí)的嗜好，而讀科幻與奇幻類(lèi)小說(shuō)更是如此——人們可以逃離自己的世界，走進(jìn)現(xiàn)在不存在、將來(lái)也不會(huì)存在的時(shí)空。endprint