They are all ...What drives speculative fiction?
Speculative Fiction and its sub genres are as vast and diverse as human imagination. Be it utopian, dystopian, science fiction, slipstream or cyberpunk, no matter when each genre was born, inspiration came from multiple sources, and today we want to look at those, finding out what drives authors and gets their stories onto paper. We will also look at some specific examples to look at particular events that have inspired some of the most famous speculative fiction stories.
What influences the stories of speculative fiction?
Roussel (2018), a fiction writer, claims that speculative fiction, as a relatively new genre, is often still frowned upon by critics. “Speculative fiction’s key selling point is also its major criticism. Escapism. It takes you away from reality and into a world of magic, or spaceships. People read these books and watch these shows for pleasure, not to delve into the nitty-gritty of purple prose, complex metaphors or snapshot reality.However, I completely disagree with writing speculative fiction off as pure escapism. It’s a massively deceptive statement which leads smart and talented authors like Margaret Atwood to claim sci-fi is just “talking squids in outer space.”
The best speculative fiction performs two functions; a story unto itself, but also an allegory of society and commentary on the human condition. Are the Harry Potter books just about magic and good triumphing over evil? It actually tackles a plethora of themes like loss, coming of age, complex relationships and questing one’s identity. The fact that it’s done against a backdrop of fantasy doesn’t detract from its more complex themes.”
Furthermore, Roussel (2018) suggests that speculative fiction has a special way of dealing with potentially sensitive topics and issues in society: “This genre is the ultimate way to explore highly charged social topics by stealth. Doctor Who is a master of this, creating fantastical plots which mask debate on real-world issues. For example, in The Zygon Invasion and The Zygon Inversion. On its face, a classic alien invasion with a twist ending. Humans versus Zygons.
What it’s actually doing is tackling the subject of domestic terrorism and using the neutral ground of sci-fi to do it. A way of demonstrating the conflict without an audience bringing their established emotive prejudices to the table. It allows us to explore the issue in a way that you simply cannot in the ‘real world’.
That’s why speculative fiction can do what no other genre can and gives us level ground. We can tackle topics other fiction won’t go near, whether because of religious, political or emotive considerations. Speculative fiction is baggage-free and can tackle issues from every angle, not just the one which is popularly accepted.”
Imagination
Demers Dowdall (2017) takes a look at peoples’ imagination and the curiosity to think about what people would do in different circumstances and in the future. People “[G]et inspired by the future. How would people in the Middle Ages respond to a television? What would someone from the 1700s think of a helicopter? What would a person from the early twentieth century think of a computer, or more specifically, the Internet?
They would think these things were magical — either illusions or genuine supernatural occurrences. They might even believe the persons yielding the magical objects were witches, wizards, or gods.But you and I both know that’s not the case. Televisions, helicopters, and computers are all very real, and thanks to modern technology, most of us have access to them.
We humans have a tendency to believe that we are at the apex of knowledge — that right now, we know as much as we ever will. As much as we love fictional, futuristic stories, we tend to think of them as fanciful. Sure, a great writer or a skilled filmmaker can help us suspend our disbelief for the duration of a book or a film, but sitting in your living room on an ordinary day, it all seems rather unlikely, doesn’t it? People bouncing around in time? Fighting intergalactic wars in outer space? Come on.
But if you stop to wonder what our world will look like 100 or 1000 years in the future, these fantastical ideas don’t seem so crazy. What incredible inventions will be developed over the course of the next millennium?
Asking questions about the future is an excellent way to generate ideas for speculative fiction. [...] You’ll need to envision what the world looked like in the past, what it looks like today, and what it might look like in the distant future.”
Philosophy
Some have argued that speculative fiction is the perfect playground for philosophy, ways of thinking and how to see the world. Like no other genres, the subgenres of speculative fiction can challenge current or common views of the world and push readers or viewers out of their comfort zone. Walker (2014) writes that “The basic goal of philosophy is to ask the big questions about life: what is consciousness? What is ‘free will’? What is morality and how do we be good? How best is a state run? Sci-fi as a genre is remarkable in its power to comment on all these questions, and in its ability to ask questions from unusual and innovative angles in order to genuinely problematise some of the philosophical answers to these questions that have been proposed over the ages.” He suggests that the use of speculative fiction to tackle those topics such as humanity, human values and virtues and rules and laws amongst humans has been a topic for exploration for thousands of years. “In Plato’s greatest work, The Republic, Socrates describes the Ring of Gyges: a mythical ring which grants the wearer invisibility. By inventing this novel and impossible scenario enables Socrates to ask genuine questions about what justice is and whether an intelligent person would act morally if he knew that he could never be caught in his immoral act. The stories of Homer, too, used the Greek pantheon in a similar manner. He paints the gods of ancient Greece as capricious and vindictive, allowing the reader to ponder why we are here and how we can make sense of a chaotic world.” (Walker, 2014).
Speculative fiction gives writers and authors a way to ask critical questions about society and imagine worlds and societies where people or creatures act in certain ways that we would not see as morally acceptable. More recent examples are The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner. The idea that humans could be treated like disposable pawns in games or as guinea pigs to fight against robots seems absurd, but it is a gentle reminder that, in a less absurd way, those scenarios actually exist.
We will now look at speculative fiction and influences of history, as well as political events and what role they can play in books and films.
History and political events
History and political events or turning points have been pivotal for many speculative fiction stories, and the link between history, politics and speculative fiction is strong. Existing speculative fiction books, such as The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, are strongly rooted in historical and political events. As Atwood writes herself (2017): “In the spring of 1984 I began to write a novel that was not initially called The Handmaid’s Tale. I wrote in longhand, mostly on yellow legal notepads, then transcribed my almost illegible scrawlings using a huge German-keyboard manual typewriter that I’d rented.
The keyboard was German because I was living in West Berlin, which was still encircled by the Berlin Wall. The Soviet empire was still strongly in place and was not to crumble for another five years. Every Sunday, the East German Air Force made sonic booms to remind us of how close they were. During my visits to several countries behind the Iron Curtain - Czechoslovakia, East Germany - I experienced the wariness, the feeling of being spied on, the silences, the changes of subject, the oblique ways in which people might convey information. And these had an influence on what I was writing. So did the repurposed buildings. This used to belong to…but then they disappeared. I heard such stories many times.
Having been born in 1939 and come to consciousness during World War II, I knew that established orders could vanish overnight. Change could also be as fast as lightning. It can't happen here, could not be dependent on: anything could happen anywhere, given the circumstances.”
Atwood’s book is probably one of the most famous ones that clearly shows the correlation between history, politics, society and their influence on speculative fiction. Historians themselves acknowledge that this is something that comes natural to people.
Greene II (2018) admits that “The intersection of history and speculative fiction is incredibly important to think about. Historians themselves, in fact, occupy a particularly important space in thinking about the future—especially through fiction.” He also points to Palmer’s article in Locus Online, which highlights the close interaction between history and present in speculative fiction, and that this is a common phenomenon of humankind, to think about past and future:
“What I look at as a historian often is the different ways people imagine their own pasts. The Italian Renaissance is obsessed with ancient Rome and ancient Greece, and they have a very specific set of ideas, which are not our ideas, nor are they mediaeval ideas, or 19th century ideas. They had a particular imagined era of Greece and Rome, just as we have our own. All different periods in time have had particular past eras they’ve celebrated, or condemned, or attempted to imitate or characterise in one way or another. I wanted to think about the future in my books in relation to its past. Which eras of the past are they fascinated by? Which eras are they comparatively silent about? It’s going to be different for different futures. I remember getting a lot of fun comments on the point when we learn this future considers the first World War to have begun in 1914 and ended in 1989, because we relabel and reperiodize. Historians are constantly saying, this era ended here or there. Or whether WWI and WWII are two wars or one. Something like the Thirty Years’ War, are they independent wars that have been relabeled and renamed at different points?” (Locus Online, 2018).
Talking about the influences of her Terra Ignota Series, Palmer (2018) says:
“I try to talk about things that are happening in the world today, but also things that are recurrent in lots of eras. Since certainly the 18th century if not before, we, as a civilization, at least starting in the Western tradition, have been heavily rethinking gender and what gender means. That is absolutely a hot issue right now, and for a lot of people, it feels like a very recent hot issue, because a new iteration of that conversation has come up in newly politicised ways. But it’s been a hot and politicised issue in different ways for 300 years, and it’s plausible it will be a politicised issue again for another several centuries. There are a lot of things my series looks at: the relationship between people and the government, questions about how much self-determination people have in their political world, questions about globalisation vs. group identity that are absolutely hot issues right now, but have been hot issues for a long time, and will be hot issues going forward. I always find it very interesting, because people say, ‘These books feel so current,’ and when the books comment on late-stage America in a political crisis, people think I’m addressing issues raised in 2016…. but I finished writing book two in 2008. Those issues were hot issues then, and they will be again.”
Speculative fiction could therefore not only be regarded as a stimulating form of entertainment, but also, or much rather, as an important form of commemorating events of the past and predictions for the future. Writers often lean on important issues in society on various topics and weave those in their stories. Those stories then become, like history books, a powerful and stark reminder that humans sadly can be capable of truly abhorrent things - but also display huge levels of love, tolerance, perseverance and motivation to overcome those events that were set out to destroy their lives.
References:
Atwood, M. 2017/ 1985. The Handmaid’s Tale. London: Penguin Random House
Demers Dowdall, K. 2017. Speculative futuristic inspiration. Available at: SPECULATIVE FUTURISTIC INSPIRATION | Pen & Paper (karendowdall.com) (Accessed 8th May 2022)
Greene II, R. 2018. Historians and Speculative Fiction. Available at: Historians and Speculative Fiction | Society for US Intellectual History (s-usih.org). (Accessed 10th May 2022)
Palmer, A. 2018. Beyond the Exponential Age. Available at: Ada Palmer: Beyond the Exponential Age – Locus Online (locusmag.com). (Accessed 10th May 2022)
Roussel, M. 2018. Why Speculative Fiction is the inspirational genre. Available at: Why Speculative Fiction is the inspirational genre – Melanie Roussel Fiction. (Accessed 08th May 2022)
Walker, G. 2014. Speculative fiction as philosophy. Available at: Speculative fiction as philosophy (humanistlife.org.uk) (Accessed 10th May 2022)
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