Yesterday I wrote about my first experiences in a face-to-face writing group.

One other thing I learned. I am so out of it when it comes to science fiction and fantasy.

The coordinator brought in a number of science fiction books recently published in Australia. I had not read one of them. (And looking at the covers, I probably won’t either.)

The younger people in the group are heavily influenced by Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica and a little bit of Star Trek. Other reviewers picked up on similarities to these shows that went totally over my head. One writer seemed to be almost writing a spin-off of one of the shows.

I once read an agent’s blog where the agent reviewd queries sent in by readers. This agent didn’t represent science fiction or fantasy normally (or a lot of other things that came through), but she reviewed everything that came through. She found a couple of SF queries she liked.  I remember my reaction was that the ideas she liked were out of date. They had been done to death twenty years earlier and science fiction had matured way beyond that, but she didn’t know the genre, so she didn’t know that.

That’s how I feel right now about about science fiction and fantasy. I am so out of touch.

So how come I am still finding new books to read?