nother year is just about over, and by the time I write the next editorial, it will be 2004. But it's more than just the 12 months of 2003 that will have been banished—also flushed away by the passage of time wll be many topics about which, come next year whenever they're brought up in casual conversation, we'll all be able to say, "Oh, that was so 2003."
I'm sure you have your own list of issues to be cut adrift, but here are some of the things that I plan on bidding goodbye to once the ball drops in Times Square:
Salivating for Sequels: With both Matrix Revolutions and Return of the King behind us by then, I won't have to spend any more of my time wondering whether they'll live up to the hype or to the installments that came before. Though there will certainly be sequels released in 2004, none will have the heat that these two did. Living with such hope and fear can be painful, and it will be a relief to pack away that state of queasy anticipation.
Arguing About Arnold: The next time an actor is driven to run for political office, the debate over whether or not it's possible for a thespian to be taken seriously should be unnecessary. We should have been willing to accept this lesson from Ronald Reagan, but for some reason, we weren't really listening. Schwarzenegger, however, proved to us that this issue is dead. Whoever is the next candidate to throw his (or her) hat into the ring, whether it be Alec Baldwin, Dennis Miller—or even Jerry Doyle for one more try—I don't intend to waste a brain cell wondering whether winning is possible.
Unsuccessful Superheroes: Unlike the thrill ride of Spider-Man, this year's Daredevil and Hulk flicks each delivered heroes that did not fulfill reader (or studio) expectations. Fans and critics agree that the reasons these films went astray was the wild rewriting of motivations that made these characters great. Hopefully, the filmmakers have learned that they shouldn't mess with comic-book success, and I won't have to worry about them making a mess of my favorites anymore. One more worry to be filed away.
Mooning the President: Yes, I know that the possibility of a trip to Earth's satellite has only just been announced, but still, it's not an issue with which I intend to spend much time wrestling. Let others debate for the next year whether it's a political ploy or something more—it's a case that I just intend to consider closed. There's no need to make lists of pros and cons, to weigh them all endlessly in search of the perfect solution. However long I'd spend puzzling it out, the answer will always be clear to me. Humanity should go. Heck, I want to go. So no more thinking about this—all that's left for me is the waiting for it to happen.
Dead Men Writing: Robert A. Heinlein, who crossed over in 1988, will be (amazingly) publishing his first novel next month. Yes, you read that sentence correctly—his first. Science fiction's grandest of Grand Masters had thought that he'd destroyed all copies of his freshman effort, For Us, the Living, as he no longer wanted it to see print, but it turns out that a friend had kept a copy all these years. At one time, I would have raged about a writer's wishes being ignored posthumously. Now, I'm putting such hesitations to bed. Now that I have a copy in my hands, my only thoughts next year will be that I'm just happy we'll all have a chance to read the book.
There you have it—five editorials rolled into one as I prepare to retire 2003. Now that I've erased these issues from my RAM, just think what I'll be able to do with all the extra space I have left in my brain!
Scott Edelman started his trek to the editor-in-chief position at Science
Fiction Weekly decades ago, 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 most recent short story appears in the new anthology Men Writing Science Fiction as Women, edited by Mike Resnick.
