Author Spotlight: Samuel Ben White
Author Samuel Ben White
Samuel Ben White (“Sam” to his friends) is the author of the national newspaper comic strip “Tuttle’s” (found at http://www.tuttles.net) and the on-line comic book “Burt & the I.L.S.” (found at http://www.destinyhelix.com). He is married and has two sons. He serves his community as both a minister at a small church and a chaplain with hospice. In addition to his time travel stories, Sam has also written and published detective novels, a western, three fantasy novels and four works of Christian fiction.
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Is this Science Fiction?
By: Samuel Ben White
Ask your average man (or woman) on the street, “What is science fiction?” and they’ll usually reply by citing works of science fiction they are familiar with, such as “Star Wars”, “Star Trek” and “Avatar. Just kidding. Usually, they’ll just look at you strangely then walk on, trying their best not to make eye contact. “What sort of person stops a total stranger on the street and asks that?!?” they wonder, as they scurry on about their business.
Most people don’t really care about the question. They are familiar with the term “science fiction” and even enjoy some the movies and TV shows mentioned above. If you were to ask them if there is a difference between “science fiction” and “fantasy” many—maybe most—of them wouldn’t have an opinion. “Perhaps,” they mayhaps reply, “’Science fiction’ involves space ships and aliens and an increasingly chubby William Shatner while ‘fantasy’ would be elves and unicorns and angry little dwarves like that lead singer for AC/DC.”
Most people, though, don’t really spend a lot of time contemplating the topic. They watch movies and TV shows that would fit into either category and occasionally read a book from the genre but their main criteria for the whole discussion is, “Do I enjoy this work?”
And then there are the hard-core freaks. You have them everywhere—the people who can discern the difference between a country song and a western song and will start a fight with anyone who can’t; those individuals who become irritated with anyone who confuses Dadaism with impressionism; or those people who claim that—even blind-folded—they can tell the difference between the fried apple pie and the fish filet at a fast food restaurant and scorn those who can’t.
In the world of science fiction and fantasy they manifest themselves as angry little internet trolls who want a hard line drawn not just between science fiction and fantasy, but between science fiction and hard science fiction, between hard science fiction and speculative hard science fiction, between speculative futuristic science fiction and … you get the idea.
I once got into a long, protracted (yes, I know those words mean almost the same thing but just one of them didn’t fully convey what I’m going for here) argument with a “fan of science fiction.” In my defense, he started it. It began by asking myself and several other people (I think he was writing an article for some web site), “What, in your opinion, is the best science fiction show ever on TV?” Now, notice, he did ask for my opinion, implying that there were no empirically right or wrong answers.
The answer I gave him was, “Quincy, M.E.” You’d think I’d just substituted Preparation H for his toothpaste. He wrote me several long letters about how “science fiction” clearly meant shows with futuristic, speculative or fantastic elements. I wrote back that, no, if the term itself means anything it means fiction based in science. “Quincy” was a fictional show with scientific underpinnings, ergo, it was science fiction (and, according to a cousin of mine who is a forensics specialist, Quincy was far more scientific than the current crop of “CSI” shows even if we never did learn his first name).
In other words, science fiction means something different to the hardcore fan of science fiction than it does to the casual fan: it means that words mean nothing. No, seriously, it means that “science fiction” should be put in the category of “things we don’t discuss” like religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.
For the record, my novel “First Time: The Legend of Garison Fitch” is “time travel/fantasy” and only “science fiction” if that either a] helps me to sell it or b] torques off that guy from three paragraphs ago.
First Time: The Legend of Garison Fitch
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“What if history didn’t happen that way … the first time?”
Garison Fitch was one of the most revered scientists in the Soviet Americas until he left fame behind to work on a secret project in his log cabin in the mountains of Marx.
But something went wrong. Instead of traveling interdimentionally, Garison has traveled through time … twice.
Now, he’s in something called “The United States of America” and a woman he’s never met before is calling herself his wife. It it a hoax? Or, has he somehow changed history?
If so, can he return the world to what he believes is “normal”, or must he live in this strange world he created?
Also Part of the Series:
Saving Time
Two years ago Garison Fitch traveled through time and rewrote history. An accident in the eighteenth century created a whole new world, and even gave Garison a wife he had never met before. Now, he’s got a daughter and he’s coming to enjoy this world he created. Until he’s attacked by men masquerading as Indians, and a funeral procession from out of the past enlists his help, and a tree grows from sappling to full-grown in a matter of minutes, threatening his daughter’s very life. Time itself is unraveling and Garison’s trips through time seem to be the cause. Garison must go back in time once again and keep himself from making the original trip that started the problem. But he can’t use his time machine to go back. How does one sew up a rip in time?
Lost Time
Jason Kerrigan and Brownwyn Dalmouth are pilots with the Republic of Texas Army Air Corps. A world war is going on and bombs have just brought an end to Crockett Air Field in south Texas. Jason and Bronwyn, though, are called away from the battle to be test pilots for a new aircraft that-they’re told-will bring the war to an end. The experimental craft lives up to expectations in early tests, but then it lands them somewhere it never should have sent them. Another place? Another time? Another dimension? Somehow, they’ve taken a trip to the future and changed the past. Or did they? The answer to their change of reality may be known to a Justice of the Peace in Colorado named Garison Fitch. To figure it out, though, Garison may have to team up with his least favorite person: Bat Garrett.
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