Hello and thank you for visiting my blog. This is my first post, so I'll talk a little about why I decided to start it and what I'll be writing about.

I have a lifelong love of science fiction and related genres. Yup, I'm a geek and unashamed. I was a geek decades before all those t-shirts appeared saying 'Geek and Proud!' . I've wondered how many of those shirt wearers were actually geeks and how many were 'faux geeks' jumping on the Big Bang Theory-inspired fad. It's like when you see kids wearing Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath shirts. Are they really fans or do the shirts just look cool?

Anyway. Back to the subject. A lot of my early memories involve Doctor Who, or Star Trek, or movies and comic books. When I was little, but old enough to start acquiring reliable memories, Jon Pertwee was the incumbent on Doctor Who. I loved his arch-nemesis, the Master, played with delightful gusto by the wonderful Roger Delgado, almost as much as I loved the Doctor himself.

Star Trek also loomed large over my formative years. My mum and dad liked to watch it and so did I. It was very popular in the UK – it started airing in July 1969 and was pretty much on the BBC constantly for years after. I remember playing Star Trek in the playground and arguing over who was going to be Kirk.

Being the early 70s, there were very few TV channels (until 1982, we had three – BBC1, BBC2 and ITV) and the days of every house have a video player were some way in the future. This meant that you had to wait for good movies to be broadcast – you couldn't go on the internet (the internet? What the hell was that?) to Amazon (isn't that a river?) and order a DVD (uh . . wasn't that something from some Outer Limits episode?) Netflix? Not even a gleam of a gleam in an entrepreneur's eye.

On the occasion that something I'd like to watch was on TV, I'd grab the opportunity. For example, Hammer Horror movies on Saturdays, when dad would make a big saucepan full of popcorn and we'd settle down to watch Christopher Lee in terrifying form as Dracula, usually pursued by his long-time friend Peter Cushing. Hammer movies were great and so quintessentially British. I don't remember sci-fi movies being on that often but when they were, you bet I watched. My favourite was Forbidden Planet, that towering edifice of sci-fi movies casting such a long, long shadow. The first time I saw it I was enthralled, fascinated and, of course, terrified. The scene where the invisible monster crashes repeatedly against the force fields, roaring with hate-fuelled rage, had me literally hiding behind the sofa. Good times!

As I grew older – I won't say 'grew up' as I think that's yet to happen – I read widely, watched avidly and wrote a little. Sci-fi, fantasy, horror – these were my favourite genres and still are. This blog comes out of this love. I don't want to criticise and complain; I want to celebrate the things I love and attempt to get that across to anyone who happens to read my posts. The title of the blog? Altair IV was the name of the Forbidden Planet. It seemed appropriate.

Thanks for reading!