A meditation on speculative fiction: or, what is genre?

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What are the similarities between science fiction and fantasy?

 

The similarities are the use of the universal myth (I mean more from a folklore context

Stories are like fossils we excavate from our minds they exist beyond our comprehension of them.

A primordial soup of narrative vocabulary that is objective or we would not have expectations for them.) in different contexts. Fantasy is a past or present that never was and Science Fiction is a future or near future that never will be.

 

It is a means of allowing for traditional storytelling in the age of people on their phones (I tried writing a story that was all text messages, it is really hard). A way to preserve mythic vocabulary.

 

What is hard about genres is it's about expectation. Both, John Crowley and Samuel Delany subvert the language and context I described but are exceptions.

 

Thomas Pynchon writes supernatural histories using scientific metaphors. Making him both a Fantasy and a Science Fiction writer.

 

There are no definitive rules on what a genre can be only expectations of what it should be.

 

Genre is a means for us to find what we want. A buzzword to sift through the Noise

 

It is a marketing term and to take it too literally is what complicates things.

 

Literary Fiction is a genre where the expectation is that contemporary speculative fiction is kitsch. This is a silly expectation but that is why I don't trust capitalism.

 

Comments

  1. ChristineDecember 3, 2022 at 2:38 PM

    Good post! The distinction between sci-fi and fantasy is exactly how I separate them in my own mind.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. M1A1December 3, 2022 at 2:52 PM

      thank you. and yeah most of my feeling on expectation come from a Neil Gaiman non fiction collection Called the View from the Cheap seats. He said genre is about expectation like musical without songs is not a musical.

      Also, that is a really good book even if it is mostly introductions to other book in the first third of it.

      Delete

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