Friday, August 03, 2007

When genres collide

I know it's been done from science fiction to western (as in the television series Firefly and Molly Gloss's The Dazzle of Day). But Steve Ely's introduction to "Cloud Dragon Skies" talked about how often science fiction is about meeting the unknown, which is also the focus of all stories of exploration, colonization and making a life far from the home civilization, which also describes westerns.

Given that backdrop, when I listened to this 1955 podcast of an episode from the western, Fort Laramie, from Vintage Radio, I thought, just for fun, I would pretend I was listening to science fiction. For a long time, I've liked science fiction and not much liked westerns. Now, I think maybe there's no difference. Past, future, this world, that planet, Native Americans, Native Martians, colonists living in fear and danger from the others and from their own people, good and bad guys on both sides. Try it on the next western you see -- whether this one or some other. I'd be interested in your thoughts.

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