我们为什么读科幻？

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·肯诺比将一把光剑交给天行者卢克并对他说“你父亲希望你年龄够大后可以拥有它”一样，在我满11岁的时候，父亲送给我两本书：艾萨克·阿西莫夫的《苍穹微石》和罗伯特·海因莱因的《傀儡主人》。我不记得我先读的是哪一本，只记得我在一天里就看完了这两本书。我是一口气读完的。

《纽约科幻小说评论》杂志的总编辑凯文·马罗尼说：“我开始读科幻小说是碍于同龄人的压力：我哥哥是个科幻小说迷，所以从小到大家里满屋子都是科幻小说。我能记得我最早读的书是奇幻小说（《绿野仙踪》《纳尼亚传奇》、刘易斯·卡罗尔的小说、《神奇的收费亭》）和科幻小说（《苹果树下的太空船》、小汤姆·斯威夫特系列小说、《飞往蘑菇星球的奇幻之旅》）。”

《畅读奇幻：新生代作品指南》一书的作者戴安娜·蒂克西尔·赫勒尔德则表示，她一直是科幻小说的忠实读者。“到中学毕业为止，我总共换过13次学校，每次转到新学校，我就会去学校的图书馆——我所有的朋友都在那儿呢。我跟那些科幻小说中的人物都建立了感情。”赫勒尔德都有哪些文学伴侣呢？除了《少女妙探》之外，她还读过《时间的皱纹》《永恒之王》以及埃莉诺·卡梅伦的《蘑菇星球》系列。

科幻与奇幻类小说是关于怪异与奇妙的文学。人们读科幻与奇幻类小说是想找到一种熟悉感——儿时读的童话故事大多都带着浓厚的奇幻色彩，不过让他们一直读下去的原因却一如人们为何读书一样多种多样。

托尔出版社的编辑特雷莎·尼尔森-海登说过一句妙语：“如果你问20个不同的读者他们为何读书，他们给的理由全都是对的。”人们阅读非通俗小说是想体验别样的世界，是想既置身事外又能间接体验别人的生活。人们读小说则是为了长见识，为了休闲消遣，为了逃避等等。

阅读是一种可以逃避现实的嗜好，而读科幻与奇幻类小说更是如此——人们可以逃离自己的世界，走进现在不存在、将来也不会存在的时空。endprint