November 19, 2021

Dear Science Fiction,

You have been a core part of my identity for a long time. I read science fiction books, play science fiction games, watch science fiction TV/movies, and I write science fiction stories. But none of those pastimes are the reason you are so important to me. The truth is, you weren’t all that important until just a few years ago when my lung collapsed.

My lung collapse changed many things about my life, most of them for the worse. I became increasingly aware of my many chronic issues, how fragile my body is, how finite and changeable life is. But that experience unexpectedly birthed some good: I became fascinated with science fiction.

Alien biology that borders on the magical. Cyborgs and androids whose bodies aren’t healed so much as repaired. Planets housing completely different civilizations, a life lived in space, traveling through time to create and destroy.

My experience with my lung collapse showed me the limitations of my reality, but you took away those limitations and let me explore my life through a new lens, through a thousand different what ifs. You were my escape, more so than fantasy fiction ever was. It wasn’t because you were somehow more possible, more real, than fantasy or any other story. I knew I’d never live to see the futures, the tech, the miracles of science fiction come to life. But I didn’t need to live to see them. You brought the future and all its many possibilities to me in books, movies, games, and my own writing. You took me to meet aliens, transformed my body into a cyborg’s, traveled with me through space and time to see utopias and dystopias and everything in between. When I was bound to a hospital bed, tied to the walls with tubes and wires, you were there.

“Echo” was written partially while in the hospital, you know. My first science fiction short story. I’d never spent so long in a sci-fi world before. The world of “Echo” is very much like our own, but to me it is totally different, and not because there are androids, but because there are humans and androids, and the difference between the two is not totally clear, even to me as the writer. “Echo” was birthed from so many things in my life and the lives of those around me, but a little part of it comes directly from my like for science fiction turning into love, when you became more than just a genre but a part of who I am.

I can’t say I am glad to have gone through my lung collapse, and there are many things about the past few years I’d want to change. But I am glad of the new relationship I have with you. It’s a relationship that will only continue to grow, and for that I am so thankful.

I love you,

Jenna