What is the difference in emphasis between the terms science fiction and speculative fiction? Which is The Man in the High Castle?
The Man in the High Castle, is a an alternate history, being that it has taken genuine historical events, and posed the questions, “what if that never happened? What if the outcome had been different, or the exact opposite? What if the cause of that was something else, or was this?” etc. Alternative histories are in essence, speculative, and thus can be classified as speculative fiction. Spec. fiction can also be classed as an “umbrella term” to encase all science fiction, in the sense that most science fiction is speculative because it works on the “what if?” factor, whether it is realistic (alternate out come to a war) or seemingly unrealistic (if robots were generating a false reality in which we are all functioning in, as in the Matrix series). Examples of science fiction’s speculative nature would be: “what if time travel were possible?” and “what if humans discovered life in outer space?” and “what if robots/A.I. became as intelligent as human beings?” and so on.
Other popular genres which fall under speculative fiction are dystopian and utopian narratives, posing questions of what defines a dystopia and a utopia (each can be both or either based on POV), and “what if” certain events unfolded to lead to this world becoming a reality. Dystopia/utopia usually takes place in our world, through the means of creating an alternate history which then results in a dystopian or utopian society, though this is purely based on the POV from which the reader sees the world; The world could be the POV character’s paradise, and another character’s hell.
Dystopian narratives, more often than not, speculate an alternate or possible future, based on current or potential socio-political issue, such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, Rupert Thompson’s Divided Kingdom, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, Richard Bachman’s (Stephen King) The Running Man, and the currently popular, Susan Collin’s The Hunger Games trilogy, among many others. The general fantasy genre is to some extent speculative, though more often than not takes place in an alternate world, which is not unlike our own (populated with humans/humanoid intelligent life/characters and based on their interactions with the world and creatures around them) though certain conditions are different, such as the seasons in a Song of Fire and Ice, the fauna and flora may, more often than not, be different, like “what if dragons were real?” and the characters’ may have different cultures, beliefs and powers, such as in the world of Earthsea. By this definition, all fantasy, science fiction, and alternate history and/or future, among others, are in essence speculative.
References:
What is the difference between speculative and science fiction? (n.d.)
Hi Christie,
ReplyDeleteGood work on this post on speculative fiction and science fiction. I gained a good understanding of the differences between the two and you drew good examples of other texts outside of the secondary readings. I see that there's not much reference to the primary text, where I think the alternate world plays hugely on what happens with the character Juliana. You have a good insight into the differences of science fiction and speculative fiction and I think that you've provided a good insight into what it is. Good job :)