One of the things I learned at Bumbershoot this year is that the EMP and Science Fiction Museum are free on the first Thursday of the month, from 5 to 7 pm. I’ve been wanting to see the Sci Fi Museum and yet not wanting to pay to see it ever since it opened, so I decided to head by tonight and check it out. After visiting tonight, I’d say it is definitely worth visiting if you are a science fiction fan or are going to the EMP, anyway, now that admission is just $15 to see both.

Frankly, I’m not at all a fan of EMP. I like like theSky Church, which is a nice venue when it’s not totally sold out (I should note here that I have a real problem with claustrophobia and therefore most venues are creepy to me when they’re sold out, this isn’t a unique complaint about the Sky Church). Also, I enjoy the Northwest Passage section enough that my only complaint is that I wish it were bigger. Otherwise, I’m mostly underwhelmed by the facility, enough so that I had my doubts that the Sci Fi Museum and Hall of Fame would be interesting enough to justify paying. While I’m not going to hurry back anytime soon, having just seen it, I do definitely plan to go see it again at some point, perhaps the next time they change the special exhibit.

It helps that I spent most of my life being a serious sci-fi fan; these days I don’t keep up on the genre as I once did, but I still have an interest in it. I enjoyed the presentation of science fiction history and I think the curators did a great job of arranging and notating artifacts. . I was particularly impressed that replica items on display were clearly labelled as such; it doesn’t matter to me that the R2-D2 model in their case was not the original model, but for some people such things really are a big deal and it’s good to see that being respected. The exhibit notes as a whole were extremely well-done, clearly identifying each item on display and explaining the importance of the materials with text that’s easily understandable to people who aren’t dedicated fans while keeping it interesting enough to avoid boring those with more familiarity

Still, despite the care taken to explain sci-fi history and meaning, the museum is unlikely to impress anyone who doesn’t have an interest in sci-fi in the first place. I grew up a Star Trek fan (no, I’m neither a Trekkie nor a Trekker, just an ordinary fan), so it was pretty cool for me to get an up close look at models of the props created for the shows but unless I totally miss my guess, I just don’t think someone disinterested in the subject would particularly care very much about this phaser or that rubber mask and who but a sci-fi fan is going to be excited to look at old posters or book covers? Someone who has gone down to EMP and paid the $15 for admission might enjoy a casual stroll through after they’ve gone through the EMP exhibits, but unless you, too, are a sci fi fan, it’s probably not something you’re going to want to put on your priority to visit list. If you are a sci-fi fan and haven’t gone to check it out yet, you should definitely do so.