At The Rugged Foot Of The Mountain

I finished Roger Luckhursts' Science Fiction two nights ago. I'm not as well-read in the nonfictions on Sf as I'd like to be, but even so, I can recognize that I've just read something astonishing. It's not a complete history of Sf, but then, Luckhurst does say in his introduction that it isn't going to be. There are a few things that I wish he'd given more attention, a few things that I wish he'd at least mentioned, but there would be no way of satisfying everyone's opinion of what important Sf is, and he does a very, very thorough job of going over most of what he does mention.

It was a little intimidating to read his work, actually. I'm working towards being an Sf scholar, but there is still so much to learn. It might be a sign that I've chosen the right career path that I'm more excited than put off by the amount of work I'm going to have to do to even come close to being as knowledgeable as Luckhurst.

A quote from Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human came to mind as I was thinking about all of this:

"So it was that Lone came to know himself; and like the handful of people who have done so before him he found, at this pinnacle, the rugged foot of a mountain."

Theodore Sturgeon, More Than Human, 60

  

Knowing what I want to devote my life to doesn't make the path any easier. I'm beginning to think that figuring out where I wanted to go was the easy part.  There's that rugged foot of a mountain. Up I go.