I turned 74 last Tuesday and I’m starting to feel old. My body has been problematic for years and it’s starting to affect my mind. That includes the kinds of science fiction I choose to read and how frequently. It’s also affecting how often I write these blog posts.

When I retired in 2013 I thought I had all the free time in the world. But as the years progressed my sense of time has changed. It now feels like I have less free time than when I worked. My basic day to day routines fill up all the hours.

For many years I read on average 50+ a year. Roughly one book a week. This year I’ll be lucky to finish 33. And they were mostly audiobooks.

For many years I read one science fiction short story a day because of a Facebook reading group. That has fallen away.

I’m mostly reading nonfiction articles in magazines like The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harper’s, and New York Magazine. I find the present more fascinating than the future.

I still feel the desire to read science fiction but my taste has changed for what kinds of science fiction stories I like. I’ve lost all interest in the far future or space opera. The Moon and Mars is about as far as I’m willing to travel in my reading. And even interest in those destinations is waning.

I like science fiction that’s set close to the present and on Earth. I enjoy science fiction that has something to say about now or the near future.

Getting old has made me enjoy here and now. When I was young I loved exploring possibilities, especially far out possibilities. Now, not so much. I felt science fiction was extrapolation and speculation. Now it feels like fantasy.

I’ve never been a big fan of fantasy, but when I enjoy fantasy fiction today it’s when it’s set in the here and now and is very gentle on the fantastic.

Kids embrace the unbelievable in fiction. I feel aging has made me crave realism.

James Wallace Harris, 11/30/25

10 thoughts on “Aging and Science Fiction”

  1. Happy belated birthday, Mr. Harris. I’m on track to turn 75 in two weeks. Your post on aging through Science Fiction reflects my own experience. Thanks for all your posts.

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    1. Thanks. I’ve been watching YouTube videos about how our bodies change around 75. They only covered physiological changes. Someone should do a video on how aging changes our tastes for books and movies.

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  2. I can understand how your preferences have changed with time & age. I’m now 56 and still work in an IT / process orientated field in public sector. Since hitting 50s I have noticed that I seek out crime / other fiction that is set pre 2000 prior to total prevalence of mobile & instant access & gratification via internet. It’s maybe nostalgia but good fiction in any genre thrives on “not knowing” everything instantly – let the reader explore a characters thought process and reasoning skills.
    Strange how time and mortality change one’s reading tastes

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    2. The hard boiled detective is a hero of high risk empiricism.

      Dashiell Hammett was a detective in real life before he wrote detective fiction. He’s a credible source for how it’s done – or was done.

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  3. Apropos not much … I just finished American War by Omar El Akkad (very enjoyable) and am re/starting Brave New World. I’m enjoying reading new and old SF. What I don’t find particularly enjoyable, at least I don’t enjoy them the way I did when I was a kid, are the classics of Heinlein et al.

    Be well.

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    1. I’m reading Shadow on the Hearth, a 1950 novel about the U.S. being attacked with atomic bombs by Judith Merril. It’s told from the point of view of a suburban housewife. It reminds me of growing up.

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  4. I’m too old to care about the unreal, but not old enough to be indifferent to the future.

    I’ve also learned that what you read in magazines in not reality. I’m too empirical for that.

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    2. The only way to know something is pointing in the direction of reality is of you’re sufficiently familiar with the particular reality to have no need of signposts.

      The more I see of real life, the less faith I have in reporting.

      The only articles of interest to me:

      1. Those that give insight into things I’ve already noticed for myself.

      2. Those that tell me how to do things I want to do.

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