A Little Light on the Past

Three Science Fiction Authors That Inspired Me As a Child

by Margaret Fortune

Ask any science fiction writer to name the authors that inspired them, and you’ll likely hear some very familiar and famous names: Asimov, Clarke, Wells, Dick, Heinlein, Herbert, Verne. The list goes on and on, and no one’s list is quite the same. However, when I think back to my childhood, to the very first science fiction books that captured my imagination and inspired a love of sci-fi in me, it’s not the famous names that leap to mind. It’s the authors who wrote science fiction for children. Since it’s unlikely you’ll find these names on most people’s lists, I thought I’d shed a little light on a few sci-fi authors that maybe aren’t so well-known.

As a child, I was a voracious reader, and the library often felt like a home away from home. Now there wasn’t much science fiction for children at that time, at least not that I found, but there was a little bit. In particular, three authors—all female, interestingly enough—who first inspired me to dream of space stations, underground cities, and alien planets.

Louise Lawrence

I fell in love with her first book, Andra, from the moment I read it. Andra tells the tale of girl living in a rigid underground city in a future where Earth’s surface has been destroyed. Blinded in an accident, she’s given a brain graft from a boy who died in the 1980’s to save her sight. Not only does she wake up with the ability to see again, she has the ability to see a past Earth that was still green and free. 

This may be the first dystopian book I ever read, and I was enthralled by this restricted society and the rebellious girl who would challenge the authorities to ask for something better. The ending was both truly terrible and truly perfect at the same time, and this is one story I have never forgotten.

H.M. (Helen Mary) Hoover

Space stations, alien civilizations, colonies on Mars, underground cities. H.M. Hoover seemed to write it all, and she was, without a doubt, my favorite science fiction author as a child. The Delikon, Away is a Strange Place to Be, The Winds of Mars, This Time of Darkness…I honestly don’t think I could pick a favorite. These books, among many others, were all wondrous in different ways. What I will say is that these were the books that truly transported me to far-off worlds. That made me contemplate what it would be like to live on a space station or to discover an alien civilization…or to be conquered by one! 

Monica Hughes

I first saw her book, Invitation to the Game, in a weekly reader at school, and had to read it based on the cover alone. Set in an overcrowded futuristic Earth, this is probably one of, if not the first book, I read dealing with virtual reality simulations. However, it wasn’t this book, but the one it led me to, The Keeper of the Isis Light, that really left an impression on me.

The Keeper of the Isis Light tells the tale of an orphaned girl raised by a robot on an alien planet. As a baby, she was physically modified to withstand the environmental dangers of the planet, and though still human, looks distinctly different. Having never seen another human, she’s excited when a new colony comes to settle her world…only to find out that different isn’t always considered a good thing. This book’s commentary on what it truly means to be human—both inside and out—is a lesson worth remembering.  

These days, there is no shortage of MG and YA science fiction to inspire today’s youth. YA sci-fi is booming, from dystopian epics like Veronica Roth’s Divergent, to space adventures such as Beth Revis’s Across the Universe, to alien invasion stories like Rick Yancey’s The Fifth Wave. And as a YA crossover science fiction author, I hope my stories will one day inspire readers, both young and old, as well. The same way I was once inspired by battered old library books from the 70’s, 80’s, and early 90’s that contained amazing stories and added their own small piece to the world of sci-fi. 

Bio:  Margaret Fortune wrote her first story at the age of six, and has been writing ever since. She has a BA in psychology from the University of Minnesota – Morris, and her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in magazines such as Nth Zine, Neo-Opsis Science Fiction Magazine, and Space and Time. Her science fiction novel Nova is the first of a five book series coming from DAW Books in June 2015. 

Twitter: @mara_fortune
Website: https://margaretfortune.wordpress.com