don't know how you spent your New Year's Eve, but I spent mine engaged in that grand old holiday tradition of making resolutions for the year to come. And since I happen to be a science-fiction writer and editor, many of those resolutions end up revolving around science fiction. (Work with me on this one, folks.) To keep me on the straight and narrow, let me share some of them with you, so that as the year progresses, you can keep track of my success at sticking to them.
Here we go:
RESOLVED: I will refrain from my recent annoying habit of bugging my wife by removing my wedding band, dangling it before her and making lame references to The Lord of the Rings—at least until next year when The Return of the King approaches.
RESOLVED: If ever given all the knowledge in the world in exchange for my memories of the past, I promise not to whine as much as that John Doe guy.
RESOLVED: I will stop worrying about whether Jeri Ryan feels betrayed due to the things I have been thinking behind her back whenever I contemplate Jolene Blalock.
RESOLVED: Next fall, I will resist placing bets on which new sci-fi series will live and which will die. (Or else I'd better just go ahead and admit what I should have learned long ago—that when it comes to television, the normal rules of logic don't apply.)
RESOLVED: I will stop the frustration of watching for the release of a big-screen Watchmen.
RESOLVED: In order to get a clear picture of exactly what films Hollywood plans to make five or 10 years down the road, I will reread the collected works of Philip K. Dick.
RESOLVED: I will not shake hands with Johnny Smith.
RESOLVED: When it comes time to vote for this year's Hugo and Nebula Awards, I will reread all of the nominees, instead of just voting for my friends.
RESOLVED: I will exhibit frugality by postponing the purchase of a complete set of Babylon 5 DVDs to replace all of the episodes I taped when they were originally broadcast—though this is one I hope you won't hold me to.
RESOLVED: I promise not to complain quite so much this year when the Oscar nominations are released and sci-fi is once more for the most part overlooked.
RESOLVED: I will try real hard to reserve judgment on all the upcoming sequels—and that includes Star Wars III.
RESOLVED: Before buying any more cartons of VHS tapes, I will attempt to catch up on all of the shows I taped last year that I still haven't watched.
RESOLVED: I will stop going on and on with stories of the "old days" of SF fandom, lest people start thinking that I used to hang out with Hugo Gernsback.
RESOLVED: I will not piss off Willow.
RESOLVED: While watching sci-fi television this year, I will try not to yearn for the likes of Rod Serling too much.
RESOLVED: I will do my best to make sure that these resolutions last a little bit longer than did Joss Whedon's Firefly ... but considering my track record when it comes to keeping resolutions, I might have to settle for them lasting only as long as That Was Then.
There you go—a few of my sci-fi promises for 2003. And who knows? Thanks to the near-instantaneous nature of Web publishing, some of them might even remain unbroken by the time you read this!
Scott Edelman started his trek to the editor-in-chief position at Science
Fiction Weekly back in 1974, when he began working as an assistant editor at
Marvel Comics. Between these two positions, this four-time Hugo Award nominee in
the category of Best Editor was the founding editor of the
award-winning magazine Science Fiction Age, in addition to editing
Sci-Fi Universe, Sci-Fi Flix and Satellite Orbit. Currently, he also edits SCI
FI, the official magazine of the SCI FI Channel. His short stories can be found in the recent anthologies Angel Body and other Magic for the Soul and The Book of More Flesh.
