Science fiction is like a shapeshifter with a split personality. Sometimes it's cheap, shiny and energetic -- all the fun you want to have, but can't because it's not physically, technologically or logically possible. Other times, it's a twisted and reconfigured statement about the world outside your window -- or the world that it could become.

But within those two main spheres of the genre, there are almost endless possibilities. Science fiction is both Captain Kirk versus the monster and Kirk versus the problem. It's Superman battling Doomsday over the skies of Metropolis and Batman using high-tech toys to cripple the mob in Gotham City. It's George Lucas' bombastic tales of good versus evil and George Orwell's cold, gritty vision of English socialism.

If it's not been made apparent by the above rant, I've been an avid science fiction fan for as long as I can remember. When I started kindergarten, I was the kid who took Transformers and G.I. Joe a little too seriously. I started reading comic books when I was 8 and quickly figured out I wanted to be Spider-Man -- and have never really grown out of either of those two things. I wrote my first (poorly-typed) science fiction story when I was 9 about NASA going to Mars (I had just gotten back from Space Camp). I can tell you which Star Trek films are worth your time and, unfortunately, which Friday the 13th movies are too. The last two novels I've read are Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and American Gods, and my four favorite authors are Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, Mark Millar and Grant Morrison.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to this class.