There are many different types of speculative fiction. There is the magic realism, which is in Harry Potter; the fantasy fiction goes to the world of Narnia, the dystopian fiction of The Hunger Games, and the science fiction of stories from out of this world like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Each of these sub genres with in the speculative fiction has a theme that is common, the theme of what if. What if it’s the end of the world or if there was really magic, or even if there is a whole different world we couldn’t see. Speculative fiction is that genre that people wish they could live in, or have.
One thing that always seems to be certain in speculative fiction is the main character/ hero / heroin is an adolescent adult with only a few cases of children or adults instead. Such as Harry Potter, we see that Harry go up though his teen years. In the City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, Clary is 15/16. Along with in the Uglies trilogy by Scott Westerfeld, the main character, Tally, starts her journey at 16 at the beginning of the first book. Nothing really says exciting in book as sending a teenager in to a dangerous situation. Yet our main character always have a reason to be the hero/heroin, they are thrust into the situation. They are allowed to choose what they want to do, but since they are good, they make the right decision to fight the evil. Such as Harry going to beat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Another thing for speculative fiction would be that the worlds that it is set in is not our own. Some may start in our world such as the Harry Potter Series, City of Bones, and The Chronicles of Narnia and so on. Nevertheless there are others that don’t such as hundreds of years in the future like The Hunger Games trilogy or the Uglies trilogy. All speculative fiction though is to make us escape for our own world, to answer our “what ifs” and the setting/world that all these take place in can’t be our own. We need to escape from everything here, the worlds in speculative fiction invites the reader in; making the reader desire to be in that world constantly. I don’t know any kid who didn’t want to be a wizard or witch after reading Harry Potter.
Each speculative fiction almost always the outcomes are the same, yes there are different version and ways to get to that ending but more or less, boiling down the details, they are essentially the same. The character is pushed somehow into their journey, they go through their journey faces hardships on the way, in the end they come to the point of battling or facing their foe that has caused all this trouble for them. In Harry Potter, Harry goes through all of his school years dealing with something happening because of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and in the end Harry faces him. In The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, the children have to face The White Witch at the end, and she returns though out the series till the very last battle. With the Uglies trilogy, Tally is always trying to fight her government with their rules and regulations and trying to break out their secrets. Until Tally herself lets the “mind rain” run across the world to stop the brainwashing of everyone but the élite few.
When all's said and done though speculative fiction is quite good. Even though there is a basic formula for these novels, the worlds and characters is what makes these books amazing. This genre answers the questions that we may have never dreamed of, yet with all good answers it always leads to more questions. Isn’t that though what a good book makes us do? It always leaves the readers wanting more.
> strong intro--it helps frame the genre and its context
ReplyDelete> I'd like to see more specifics about City of Bones, like quotations from the text, specific scenes referenced, etc.
> I like the structure of this piece and the depth at which you considered speculative fiction. The comparisons are interesting!