I didn’t actually see Star Wars (known later as A New Hope) until two months after it premiered when my battle-buddy Doug and I managed to escape FT Lewis for an afternoon and make our way into Tacoma for a non-government issue meal and a movie. I’d known about it, having suffered though the novelization the winter1 before and feasted on preproduction art published in Jim Steranko’s seminal trade journal Mediascene not long afterwards. We managed to get the last two seats, so I saw everything from the center of the third row where I was mesmerized by the stunning visuals and breakneck pacing.
…but as much as I enjoyed Mr. Lucas’s masterpiece, it wasn’t the most important piece of speculative fiction that I encountered that year. That honor fell to Larry Niven’s Known Space series as published by Ballentine Books. My Beautiful Saxon Princess and I spent a good part of our leisure time that first year of our marriage scrambling between bookstores in search of those books, which were readily identifiable by their superb Rick Sternbach covers. As for why I preferred the books: I prefer hard science fiction to the softer variety and (oddly enough for a soldier) “space battles” lose their appeal for me quickly as I am more intrigued with problem-solving and dealing with a harsh environment (totally believable for a kid raised in rural Alaska).
I’m not sure of the exact moment Apocalypse got paired up with the Niven books. We were “economically challenged” that first year so books were our main source of entertainment and I always had something on the turntable while we were reading. I’d inherited the record from my roommate2 the year before and being so new this particular record was played a lot…and as it played while I read the ethereal, other-worldly music seemed a perfect fit to the books in both scope and mood,
It still does. Whenever I dive back into Protector or Ringworld I cue this album up, albeit via streaming tor CD these days instead of vinyl.
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Notes
1. The only shaky point in our engagement was when I elected to stay in and read rather than take my betrothed to dinner on Valentines Day. I was totally oblivious as I had plenty of books for my Beautiful Saxon Princess to read while I finished the book.
2. Lonnie Magnusson a.k.a. the one non-family member that I had lived with the longest prior to marrying Lori (one year at Ricks College and another at BYU after serving our respective bicycle penances.)
David R. Deitrick, Designer 