Golden Age

He spotted a painting of a familiar cover – a book he head read in the eighth grade called The Scaling of the Xedrin. He had never forgotten the wonderful intricacies of the plot or the ingenious aliens Neville had dreamed up for that one.

“You know, I remember reading this one when I was twelve years old,” Phineas said, pointing to the painting.

“Ah yes, the golden age,” Neville cried.

“What’s that?”

Neville chuckled. “The golden age of science fiction.”

“Oh, you mean back in the nineteen forties?” asked Kemp.

“No, dear fellow. The golden age of science fiction is twelve. That’s the time when most of us discover it, and that’s when it’s best for us, right?”

- From Night of the Dragonstar, pg. 59, by Thomas F. Monteleone


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Nice sentiment, very apt. Read it elsewhere by other authors, so the observation’s not unique to Monteleone. Nevertheless, it is true. I myself was absolutely fascinated with SF around that age, as I’ve written about many places here on this blog. I reveled in Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Bradbury, Wolf, Goulart, Silverberg, and a dozen others during that year, and the ones immediately before and after it, in the closing years of the 1970s.