Sci-Fi has attracted me in quick, but powerful hits. Growing up watching Alien and The Matrix with my dad showed that this incredible genre can span generations. I was enamored with the Halo series of videogames. Reading Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life and Others struck me for blending emotional power with hard science fiction, along with subtle embraces of religion (I am a Religious Studies minor). Other strange but wonderful books, like The Passage, Forever War, and Dark Matter continued to blend hard science with religion, geopolitics, and family structure.

The Forever War served as a fantastic take on the Vietnam War.

I’ve slowly come to realize that sci-fi can use the improbable to provide better insights into the present and challenge long-lasting postulations about our world. I’m thrilled to be taking this course because I hope to articulate how hard this genre has hit me.